iv* 


1891 


UCSB   LIBRARY 


/ 


A  TRIBUTE  TO 


THEODORE  WOOLSEY  DWIGHT,  LLD. 


PRESENTED  ON  HIS  RESIGNATION  FROM 
THE  WARDENSHIP  OF  THE  COLUMBIA 
COLLEGE  LAW  SCHOOL,  1891  •  •  •  • 


EDITED  BY 
FREDERIC  J.  SWIFT 


Imicfcerbocfter  press 
1891 


COPYRIGHT,  1891 

BY 
FREDERIC  J.  SWIFT 


Ube  fmicfeerbocfeer  press 

Printed  and   Bound  by 
G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


To  DR.  THEODORE  W.  DWIGHT  : 

A  few  plain  words  expressive  of  generous  regard  toward  one  we  hold 
in  the  kindliest  reverence  cannot  but  carry  conviction,  to  him  of  whom 
they  are  spoken,  of  their  deep  sincerity. 

And  in  presenting  these  tributes  from  eminent  graduates  of  Columbia 
Law  School,  I  perform  a  duty,  the  pleasure  of  which  can  be  measured 
only  by  the  sympathy,  tenderness,  and  love  which  your  students  have 
invariably  and  will  always  entertain  for  you.  The  cherished  memories 
of  the  years  spent  under  your  guidance  are  sweet  to  all. 

Others  would  have  tendered  their  tributes  of  praise  to  this  testi- 
monial but  for  the  necessities  of  their  business  engagements.  It  is  but 
fair  to  them  to  record  that  without  exception  they  expressed  their 
loyalty  and  gratitude  to  their  friend  and  professor,  and  deeply  regretted 
their  inability  to  acknowledge  in  this  way  their  appreciation  of  that 
patience  and  gentleness  which  you  have  ever  accorded  to  your  students. 
The  fruits  of  that  patience  and  gentleness  are  distributed  over  our  entire 
country,  and  will  long  remain  a  testimonial  to  your  rare  influence. 

It  is  in  this  spirit  that  these  tributes  are  presented  to  you.  And  in 
the  name  of  all  those  whom  you  have  taught — manliness  as  well  as  law 
— I  wish  you  health  and  happiness  for  many  years  to  come.  As  you 
have  shown  kindliness  toward  others,  so  may  your  life  be  lengthened. 

FREDERIC  JOSEPH  SWIFT. 

COLUMBIA  LAW  SCHOOL, 
May  10,  1891. 


CONTENTS 


COLUMBIA  LAW  SCHOOL — A  SKETCH  OF  ITS  HISTORY. 

BY  PROFESSOR  GEORGE  CHASE  I 

TRIBUTE  OF  JUDGE  WILLIAM  J.  WALLACE 8 

TRIBUTE  OF  HON.  JOSEPH  R.  HAWLEY IO 

TRIBUTE  OF  JUDGE  D.  P.  BALDWIN,  LL.D. II 

TRIBUTE  OF  EDMUND  WETMORE 13 

TRIBUTE  OF  HENRY  HOLT 1 5 

TRIBUTE  OF  FRANKLIN  MACVEIGH 1 6 

TRIBUTE  OF  JAMES  RICHARDS 1 8 

TRIBUTE  OF  GEORGE  W.  VAN  SICLEN 19 

TRIBUTE  OF  WILLIAM  C.  WITTER 2O 

TRIBUTE  OF  MORRIS  W.  SEYMOUR 22 

TRIBUTE  OF  HENRY  R.  BEEKMAN .  24 

TRIBUTE  OF  GEN.  HENRY  EDWIN  TREMAIN       .        .        .       .       .26 

TRIBUTE  OF  CHARLES  W.  DAYTON 29 

TRIBUTE  OF  MORRIS  M.  BUDLONG $1 

TRIBUTE  OF  JAMES  L.  BISHOP .34 

TRIBUTE  OF  R.  WAYNE  PARKER 36 

TRIBUTE  OF  WILLIAM  D.  FOULKE 38 

TRIBUTE  OF  HON.  OSCAR  S.  STRAUS 40 

TRIBUTE  OF  JUDGE  WILLIAM  H.  DEWITT 42 

TRIBUTE  OF  WILLIAM  P.  FOWLER 44 

TRIBUTE  OF  WILLIAM  B.  HORNBLOWER 45 

TRIBUTE  OF  HON.  PERRY  BELMONT 47 

TRIBUTE  OF  DWIGHT  ARVEN  JONES 48 

TRIBUTE  OF  ETHELBERT  D.  WARFIELD 5<D 

LETTERS  OF  REGRET  FROM 

JUDGE  HENRY  BISCHOFF,  JR 52 

JUDGE  LE  BARON  B.  COLT          .        .        .        .               .        .  52 

JUDGE  MORGAN  J.  O'BRIEN 53 

W.  M.  IVINS 53 


Columbia  College  %aw  School 
H  Sfcetcb  of  its  Distort 

professor  (Seorge  Cbase. 


The  history  of  Columbia  College  Law  School  is,  in  reality,  the  history 
of  a  method  of  instruction  and  of  the  educational  work  of  a  great  teacher. 
For,  as  "  man's  life  consisteth  not  in  the  abundance  of  the  things  which 
he  possesseth,"  so  the  life  of  an  educational  institution  does  not  consist 
in  its  buildings  or  grounds  or  endowment  or  income,  but  rather  in  the 
imparting  of  knowledge,  in  the  training  and  disciplining  of  the  minds 
of  its  students,  in  developing  their  full  measure  of  capacity,  and  inspiring 
them  with  true  ideals.  To  the  accomplishment  of  such  results  in  the 
most  effectual  and  useful  way  possible,  this  School  was  dedicated  from  its 
birth.  Its  aim  was  to  benefit,  as  best  it  could,  students  of  law,  and  not 
only  them,  but  also  the  legal  profession,  of  which  they  were  to  become  a 
part,  and  thus  to  benefit  society  at  large.  For  who  can  doubt  that  the 
welfare  of  society  is  deeply  involved  in  the  methods  of  administering 
justice  and  in  the  training  of  ministers  of  justice  ?  And  that  a  well-trained 
lawyer,  thoroughly  equipped  with  the  knowledge  of  his  profession,  and  thus 
well  qualified  to  give  sound  and  judicious  counsel  to  his  clients  —  imbued, 
moreover,  with  high  principles  of  action  —  is  properly  to  be  termed  a 
"  minister  of  justice,"  is  beyond  question.  The  success  of  the  Columbia 
School,  in  its  purpose  to  train  and  develop  such  lawyers,  is  well  attested 
in  the  lives  of  many  of  its  graduates,  who  hold  to-day  positions  of  the 
highest  honor  and  influence  at  the  bar  or  on  the  bench. 

"  Mere  practising  lawyers  "  are  sometimes,  nowadays,  spoken  of  with 
seeming  contempt,  as  if  the  unceasing  absorption  of  legal  knowledge  and 
the  development  of  legal  pundits  should  be  the  great  ideal,  rather  than 
to  train  lawyers  who  should  make  their  learning  of  some  practical  value. 
But  the  Columbia  School  has  purposely  sought  to  make  its  instruction 
theoretical  and  at  the  same  time  practical.  That  its  students  might  be 
competent  to  give  wise  counsel,  the  principles  and  reasons  of  the  law 
must  be  carefully  instilled  into  their  minds,  and  their  capacity  must  be 


THE  DWIGHT  TRIBUTE. 


cultivated  to  discern  and  understand  sound  legal  theory  and  philosophy. 
Theory  and  practice  have  never,  therefore,  been  severed,  but  the  one  has 
been  the  handmaid  of  the  other. 

"  Heaven  does  with  us  as  we  with  torches  do, 
Not  light  them  for  themselves  ;  for  if  our  virtues 
Did  not  go  forth  of  us,  't  were  all  alike 
As  if  we  had  them  not.     Spirits  are  not  finely  touched, 
But  to  fine  issues,  nor  Nature  never  lends 
The  smallest  scruple  of  her  excellence, 
But,  like  a  thrifty  goddess,  she  determines 
Herself  the  glory  of  a  creditor, 
Both  thanks  and  use." 

Heartily  glad  are  all  the  instructors  in  this  School  that  the  torches 
here  lighted  have  not  been  lighted  for  themselves,  but  have  shone  out  to 
guide  many  a  troubled  wanderer,  and  save  from  many  a  fall.  And  as 
to  men  here  trained,  their  virtues  have  "  gone  forth  "  of  them,  and  they 
have  returned  in  abundant  tribute  "  both  thanks  and  use." 

Such  have  been  the  purposes  and  ideals  of  Columbia  College  Law 
School  from  its  origin  down  to  the  present  time.  Its  external  history  is 
briefly  told.  It  was  first  established  in  1858,  and  Professor  Theodore  W. 
Dwight,  who  prior  to  that  time  had  been  a  professor  of  law  in  Hamilton 
College,  was  placed  in  sole  charge  of  the  department  of  instruction  in 
municipal  law.  The  School  found  its  first  home  in  the  Historical  Society 
building,  at  the  corner  of  Second  Avenue  and  Eleventh  Street.  After- 
wards, as  the  number  of  students  increased  from  year  to  year,  it  was 
removed,  first  to  37  Lafayette  Place,  a  few  years  later  to  8  Great  Jones 
Street,  and  finally,  after  a  few  years  more,  to  the  grounds  of  Columbia 
College  on  East  49th  Street,  where  it  has  since  been  located.  Until 
1873  the  entire  work  of  instruction  in  every  topic  of  private  law  devolved 
upon  Professor  Dwight,  as  did  also  the  business  management  of  the 
School  to  a  very  large  extent,  and  also  the  enlargement  and  supervision 
of  the  library,  etc.  But  notwithstanding  this  great  amount  of  labor 
undertaken  by  him,  he  did  not  seem  overburdened  by  it,  and  it  was  not 
until  1873  that  he  was  in  any  measure  relieved  of  these  manifold  duties. 
In  that  year  the  writer  of  the  present  article  became  Instructor  in 
Municipal  Law,  and  took  charge  of  some  of  the  topics  in  this  depart- 
ment. This  office  of  Instructor  was  changed  in  1875  to  that  of  Assistant 
Professor  of  Municipal  Law,  and  since  that  time  there  have  been  several 
new  professorships  created  and  various  changes  in  their  incumbents. 
Thus  in  1878  five  professorships  were  established :  (i)  of  the  Law  of 
Contracts,  Maritime  and  Admiralty  Law ;  this  has  been  held  by  Professor 


COLUMBIA  COLLEGE  LAW  SCHOOL. 


Dwight  down  to  1891  ;  (2)  of  Real  Estate  and  Equity  Jurisprudence, 
held  by  Professor  John  A.  Dillon  from  1878  to  1882,  and  by  Professor 
Benjamin  F.  Lee,  from  1882  to  1890;  (3)  of  Criminal  Law,  Torts,  and 
Procedure,  held  by  Professor  George  Chase  from  1878  to  1891  ;  (4)  of 
Constitutional  History  and  International  Law,  held  by  Professor  John 
W.  Burgess  till  the  present  time;  (5)  of  Medical  Jurisprudence,  held  by 
Professor  John  Ordronaux  till  the  present.  Of  late  years,  also,  much 
valuable  work,  especially  in  the  way  of  reviews,  has  been  done  by  Prize 
Tutors,  of  whom  there  are  three,  each  of  whom  is  elected  for  three  years. 

The  full  course  of  study  in  the  School  occupied  until  very  recently  a 
period  of  two  years,  but  in  1888  it  was  determined  to  extend  the  limit  to 
three  years,  and  the  class  which  graduates  this  year  (1891)  has  been  the 
first  to  come  under  this  new  regulation.  For  many  years  (from  1860  to 
1877)  tne  diploma  given  by  the  Law  School,  and  conferring  the  degree  of 
LL.  B.,  entitled  its  recipient  to  admission  to  the  bar  of  New  York  State, 
but  since  1877  the  ^aw  nas  undergone  a  change  in  this  respect,  and  an 
applicant  for  admission  to  the  bar  must  undergo  an  examination  before 
the  Supreme  Court,  which  is  conducted  by  a  committee  of  lawyers  ap- 
pointed by  the  court.  During  its  early  career,  also,  students  were 
admitted  to  the  Law  School  without  any  preliminary  examination,  but 
for  many  years  past  such  an  examination  has  been  required,  and  has 
been  useful  in  excluding  a  class  of  students  too  poorly  qualified  for 
legal  study.  By  thus  guarding  the  portals  of  the  School  as  to  those 
seeking  entrance,  and  by  subjecting  candidates  for  a  degree  upon  grad- 
uation to  a  careful  and  rigid  examination,  which  must  be  passed  to  ob- 
tain such  degree,  the  constant  effort  has  been  to  elevate  the  standard  of 
instruction  and  to  make  the  degree  more  valuable. 

The  success  of  the  Law  School,  if  this  be  judged  merely  by  the  num- 
bers in  attendance,  has  been  very  noteworthy.  The  entire  number  of 
students  who  have  been  connected  with  it  from  1858  to  1891  exceeds 
10,000.  Among  the  lawyers  of  the  New  York  City  bar,  fully  one  third 
have  been  members  of  this  School.  And  in  the  New  York  Bar  Asso- 
ciation, which  is  one  of  the  leading  organizations  of  lawyers  in  this 
country,  graduates  of  this  School  form  the  majority  of  its  membership, 
if  the  older  members  who  were  admitted  to  the  bar  before  the  Law 
School  came  into  existence  are  excluded  from  the  count.  And,  more- 
over, not  a  few  of  the  graduates  have  won  for  themselves  high  distinction, 
not  simply  in  the  practice  of  their  profession,  but  also  in  judicial 
positions,  as  ministers  to  foreign  countries,  as  members  of  Congress  and 
of  State  legislatures,  etc.  For  an  institution  which  is  yet  but  little  more 
than  thirty  years  old,  this  has  been  well  called  a  remarkable  record. 


THE  D WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 


But  the  chief  distinctive  feature  of  this  Law  School  has  been  its  method 
of  teaching.  This  it  is  which  more  than  anything  else  has  attracted 
such  a  multitude  of  students  from  year  to  year.  The  principles  and 
reasons  upon  which  the  method  is  based  seem  too  plain  and  simple  to 
even  admit  of  question.  "  The  reason  of  the  law  is  the  life  of  the  law," 
says  an  old  maxim.  Hence  the  law  must  be  taught  by  vividly  im- 
pressing upon  the  student's  mind  the  reasons  upon  which  legal  rules 
and  doctrines  are  based.  He  should  be  so  instructed  that  he  will  view 
the  law  as  a  system  of  principles,  not  as  a  mere  aggregation  of  cases. 
He  comes  to  the  study  of  law  wholly  unacquainted  with  technical  legal 
words  and  phrases,  unversed  in  legal  modes  of  thought  or  construction, 
and  to  awaken  his  interest,  stimulate  his  powers,  and  inform  his  mind, 
whatever  is  taught  him  must  be  adapted  to  his  comprehension  and 
must  be  presented  in  a  form  attractive  to  his  mind.  The  fallacy  that 
one  who  knows  a  particular  subject  well  can  teach  it  well  is  far  too  rife 
in  our  colleges  and  other  educational  institutions.  Oftentimes  such  a 
man  seems  to  lose  all  comprehension  of  the  difficulty  which  such  a  sub- 
ject had  for  his  own  mind  when  he  first  began  its  study,  and  so  he 
never  can  get  into  close  contact  with  the  minds  of  his  pupils,  nor  make 
for  them  the  crooked  places  straight.  A  teacher  must  be  able  not  simply 
to  acquire  knowledge  but  also  to  impart  knowledge.  He  must  realize 
that  for  students  who  come  to  the  study  of  what  is  for  them  a  new  and 
untried  branch  of  learning,  simplicity  and  clearness  of  statement  are  es- 
sential above  all  things  else.  He  must  understand  and  ever  realize  what 
is  their  power  of  comprehension  and  adapt  himself  to  their  needs.  He 
must  remember  that  what  seems  simple  to  him  may  be' far  from  simple 
to  them.  Nor  must  he  suppose,  as  do  some  instructors,  that  he  is  lower- 
ing his  standard  of  mental  elevation,  by  cultivating  simplicity  and  direct- 
ness of  statement.  Professor  Huxley  has  well  said  that  to  write  the 
primer  of  a  science  one  must  be  master  of  the  science.  No  teacher  of 
law,  for  example,  can  fail  to  remember  the  days  of  labor  which  it  has 
at  times  cost  him  to  frame  a  simple  definition  or  to  state  a  single  legal 
principle  clearly  and  accurately. 

Professor  Dwight's  art  of  teaching  has  been  the  best  illustration  con- 
ceivable of  these  principles.  He  must  himself  see  things  clearly,  and 
they  must  all  fall  into  their  proper  relations  before  his  mental  vision, 
or  else  his  mind  can  never  rest  satisfied.  Hence  questions  of  difficulty 
and  perplexity  are  closely  scanned  by  him  on  all  sides,  are  subjected 
to  the  keenest  analysis  which  the  powers  of  his  mind  can  bring  to  bear 
upon  them,  are  examined  in  all  their  relations  with  other  subjects,  till  at 
last  he  comes  out  of  darkness  into  light.  Then  however  abstruse  may  be 


COLUMBIA  COLLEGE  LAW  SCHOOL. 


the  topic,  however  complex  may  be  its  elements,  he  states  it  so  simply 
and  clearly,  that  the  veriest  tyro  in  the  law  can  comprehend  it,  if  not  in 
full  measure,  still  up  to  the  full  limit  of  his  own  capacity.  So  the  hap- 
piest faculty  of  clear  exposition  is  brought  to  bear  upon  it,  and  the 
charm  of  felicitous  illustration  is  added,  that  the  way  to  the  student's 
mind  may  be  most  easily  and  effectually  won. 

What  has  just  been  said  brings  to  view  other  principles,  also,  of  the 
method  of  instruction  which  Professor  Dwight  has  always  pursued,  and 
of  which  he  has  become  so  widely  famed  a  master.  That  the  rules  and 
doctrines  of  the  common  law  must  be  deduced  from  the  decisions  of 
the  courts  is  matter  of  rudimentary  legal  knowledge.  But  shall,  there- 
fore, the  student  who  knows  little  or  nothing  of  law,  and  does  not  under- 
stand the  rules  of  legal  interpretation  and  construction,  be  set  at  work 
immediately  upon  the  reported  cases  and  told  to  deduce  the  principles  of 
law  therefrom  by  himself?  Is  this  the  better  way,  or  is  rather  the 
trained  jurist,  who  has  had  years  of  study  and  experience  in  the  law, 
better  qualified  than  the  student  to  deduce  the  principles  from  the  cases, 
to  arrange  these  principles  in  their  orderly  philosophical  relations,  and 
to  present  them  in  proper  systematic  form  ?  At  the  Columbia  School, 
during  its  past  history,  the  latter  view  has  been  approved  as  the  wisest 
and  soundest.  Therefore  the  method  of  study  has  been  to  select  a 
treatise  upon  some  particular  legal  topic,  written  by  some  expert  in  that 
subject  or  by  some  eminent  jurist,  and  to  assign  a  suitable  portion  of 
this  from  day  to  day  for  the  student  to  commit  to  memory.  Herein  he 
finds  the  principles  of  law  deduced  for  him  from  the  study  of  the  reports 
and  statutes  by  one  who  is  much  better  qualified  than  himself  for  this 
task.  He  finds  these  principles  stated  in  orderly  arrangement  and  clas- 
sification, so  that  he  may  properly  appreciate  their  due  significance.  He 
studies  legal  rules  in  their  proper  order  of  relative  succession,  and  in 
their  proper  relations  to  a  comprehensive  system,  instead  of  viewing 
them  separately  and  independently.  So  the  labor  of  days  or  weeks  by 
an  author  in  the  study  of  individual  cases  is  happily  presented  to  the 
student  in  brief  and  compact  form,  and  in  a  mode  of  statement  much 
more  accurate  and  reliable  than  he  would  probably  have  attained  by 
himself  from  his  own  study  of  the  decisions.  Then  the  student,  after 
this  preliminary  study  of  the  treatise,  comes  before  the  professor  for 
recitation.  He  is  called  upon  individually  to  recite,  and  thus  feels  a 
sense  of  responsibility  that  he  may  be  able  to  exhibit  his  knowledge  of 
the  subject  and  state  it  accurately.  The  professor  then  seeks  with  all 
the  stores  of  his  experience  and  learning,  and  by  clear  illustration,  to 
resolve  whatever  difficulties  may  have  been  experienced  by  the  student 


THE  D  WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 


in  his  study  of  the  book,  or  by  the  class  as  a  whole.  In  this  way  the 
largest  measure  of  assistance  which  can  be  given  by  the  able  text-writer 
and  by  the  experienced  professor  is  afforded  to  the  student's  need. 
This  method  does  not,  moreover,  exclude  the  reading  of  cases  by  the 
student,  but  encourages  and  requires  it,  to  supplement  and  illustrate  the 
teachings  of  the  treatise.  In  this  way  the  study  of  the  reports  falls  into 
its  proper  place,  and  becomes  an  aid  and  a  help  instead  of  a  source  of 
perplexity  and  bewilderment. 

Professor  Dwight's  career  has  exhibited  the  success  and  fruitfulness 
of  his  method  most  abundantly.  His  students  have  been  enthusiastic 
while  they  have  been  under  his  charge,  and  when  they  have  gone  out 
into  the  walks  of  active  life,  they  have  retained  their  admiration  for 
his  teaching  and  their  affection  for  him  as  a  man.  The  graduates  of 
the  school  have  passed,  these  many  years,  at  once  into  the  practice  of 
their  profession,  and  brought  their  legal  training  at  once  to  the  test  of 
practical  experience.  But  they  have  continued  to  testify,  down  to  the 
present,  and  whether  they  belong  to  the  earliest  classes  or  to  the  latest, 
that  their  legal  training,  when  brought  to  the  test,  has  not  been  found 
wanting.  Any  educational  institution  and  any  instructor  may  justly 
take  pride  in  such  results. 

But  the  history  of  Columbia  Law  School  would  be  incomplete  if  the 
instructors  who  have  been  associated  with  Professor  Dwight  did  not 
testify  to  their  experience  in  their  joint  labors  with  him.  He  has  been 
to  them  the  kindest  and  truest  of  friends.  A  true  lover  himself  of 
mental  independence  and  of  freedom  of  thought  and  action,  it  has  been 
his  pleasure  that  they  should  be  of  the  same  mould  as-  himself  in  this 
respect.  He  has  aided  them  by  advice  and  counsel,  has  delighted  to 
promote  their  success,  and  to  cultivate  to  the  utmost  their  powers  as 
instructors,  but  has  always  left  to  them,  in  their  relations  with  their 
classes,  the  fullest  liberty.  They  have  always  enjoyed,  equally  with 
himself,  the  right  of  private  and  independent  judgment,  and  in  consulta- 
tion with  them  as  a  faculty,  he  has  ever  called  for  the  frankest  statement 
of  their  opinions,  and  has  given  such  opinions  their  just  weight  in 
counsel.  Hence  the  members  of  the  faculty  have  been  bound  together 
in  the  strongest  bonds  of  harmony  and  friendship.  Happier  relations 
of  instructors  towards  each  other,  and  of  their  students  towards  them, 
have  never,  it  may  be  justly  said,  been  maintained  and  cherished  in  any 
institution. 

It  can  but  bring  sadness  to  us  all,  as  teachers  and  students,  that  this 
happy  life  and  these  cherished  relations  are  now  to  come  to  an  end. 
But  Professor  Dwight's  life  has  been  inseparably  bound  up  with  the  life 


COLUMBIA  COLLEGE  LAW  SCHOOL. 


of  the  institution,  and  his  memory  will  cling  to  it  imperishably  for  the 
great  good  it  has  done,  and  the  fruitfulness  of  the  work  it  has  accom- 
plished. He  gave  it  life,  cherished  its  growth,  developed  its  strength 
and  vigor,  made  it  powerful  for  good  and  a  source  of  help  and  enlighten- 
ment to  thousands.  Neither  they  nor  those  who  come  after  them 
will  let  its  memory  die,  nor  his  memory  as  linked  with  it  in  fondest 
association. 


THE  D  WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 


{Tribute  of  3ub$e  Militant  3.  Wallace. 

•Unites  States  Circuit  Court. 

It  was  my  good  fortune  to  have  the  benefit  of  Professor  Dwight's 
instruction  at  the  Law  School  of  Hamilton  College  in  1857.  The  school 
was  in  its  infancy,  but  his  superlative  qualifications  as  a  teacher  were 
already  recognized  by  all  the  friends  of  the  college,  and  had  begun  to 
attract  a  wider  recognition.  The  classes  were  small,  eight  members  com- 
prising the  whole  corps  of  students  that  year.  Professor  Dwight  was  in 
the  prime  of  vigorous  manhood.  He  was  endued  with  an  enthusiasm  for 
the  law  both  as  a  science  and  a  vocation,  which  was  contagious  and 
irresistible,  and  which,  concentrated  upon  a  class  so  few  in  number,  could 
not  fail  to  evoke  the  best  energies  of  every  student  in  the  work  of  prepa- 
ration for  his  profession.  There  were  no  distractions  in  the  quiet  village 
of  Clinton  to  allure  us  from  our  studies.  Recitation  commenced  at  10 
o'clock,  and  for  two  hours  and  a  half  we  were  examined  by  Professor 
Dwight  upon  the  text  which  had  been  assigned  to  us  at  the  close  of  the 
preceding  recitation,  and  listened  to  his  exposition  of  leading  cases  or 
recent  decisions  upon  cognate  subjects.  Our  afternoons  and  evenings 
were  fully  occupied  in  a  careful  reading  of  the  text  for  the  next  recitation, 
and  the  hours  between  an  early  breakfast  and  recitation  were  spent  in 
reviewing  what  we  had  read  the  previous  afternoon  and  evening.  At  our 
moot  courts,  Professor  Dwight  officiated  as  the  judge,  and  the  students 
in  rotation  were  counsel.  I  need  not  say  that  the  legal  conundrums  we 
were  called  upon  to  discuss  were  decided  as  correctly  as  they  usually  are 
in  the  courts.  Such  a  student  life  throughout  the  curriculum,  under  such 
an  instructor,  ought  to  have  illuminated  the  dullest  intellect  with  a  glim- 
mering of  the  gladsome  light  of  jurisprudence,  and  supplied  the  least 
proficient  with  a  fair  equipment  of  elementary  learning.  I  know  it 
kindled  in  the  breast  of  every  student  a  generous  ardor  for  the  law  as  a 
science  rather  than  a  trade,  and  an  affection  for  Professor  Dwight  amount- 
ing almost  to  idolatry.  It  was  for  all  of  us  a  priceless  opportunity. 

During  my  professional  life  I  have  known  many  lawyers  who  were 
students  under  Professor  Dwight  after  he  entered  upon  his  larger  field  of 
usefulness  at  Columbia  Law  School,  and  it  has  always  seemed  to  me  that 

8 


JUDGE  WILLIAM  J.   WALLACE. 


I  could  discover  in  them  the  traces  of  his  influence  and  example.  I  have 
never  heard  one  of  them  speak  of  him  except  in  terms  of  loving  regard 
for  the  man  and  loyal  appreciation  of  his  unrivalled  merits  as  a  teacher. 
I  shall  not  dwell  on  his  attainments  in  jurisprudence,  or  the  part  he 
has  filled  in  public  affairs  during  a  long  and  busy  life.  It  is  allotted  to 
few  to  achieve  like  him  distinction  as  a  lawyer,  judge,  legislator,  and 
publicist.  His  best  fame  will  rest  on  his  best  work, — the  great  work  for 
which  he  was  pre-ordained  by  his  pre-eminent  gifts, — the  preliminary 
education  of  6,000  students  for  a  career  of  usefulness  in  a  noble  and 
ennobling  profession. 

SYRACUSE,  N.  Y.,  April  25,  1891. 


io  THE  D  WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 


tribute  of  1bon.  3o0epfo  1R. 

"Unite?  States  Senator  from  Connecticut. 

I  have  known  Professor  T.  W.  D  wight  since  about  1844.  While  he 
was  at  Hamilton  College,  I  was  a  member  of  his  classes  in  law,  the  German 
language,  etc.  He  was  then  a  comparatively  young  man.  We  all 
regarded  him  with  great  respect  and  I  may  say  fraternal  affection.  He 
was  an  admirable  teacher.  His  evident  interest  in  the  matter,  his  desire 
to  win  young  men  to  study,  and  his  charming  manner  impressed  all  of 
us.  This  regard  has  followed  him  during  his  long  life.  I  congratulate 
him  upon  his  very  useful  and  honorable  career,  and  wish  him  health  and 
happiness  for  many  years  to  come. 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  April  10,  1891. 


JUDGE  D.  P.  BALDWIN,  LL.D.  n 


tribute  of  3ufcge  2).  p.  Baldwin, 

fij=Bttornes*®ineral  of  fnbfana. 

By  an  alphabetical  accident  I  head  the  Alumni  Law-School  List  of 
Columbia  College  and  received  the  first  diploma  that  ever  came  from 
Dr.  Dwight's  hands.  Probably  it  would  be  no  unjustifiable  untruth 
to  say  that  I  am  the  oldest  living  Alumnus  of  our  now  celebrated  Law 
School.  Naturally  a  brief  sketch  of  its  infantile  days  and  of  Dr. 
Dwight  in  its  weakness  will  be  appropriate  to  this  testimonial  number. 
Dr.  Dwight  was  from  1846  to  1858  Professor  of  Political  Economy 
and  History  in  Hamilton  College,  N.  Y.  When  I  first  made  his 
acquaintance  in  1854,  he,  outside  of  his  college  work,  was  teaching  a 
law  class.  The  outcome  of  this  was  the  incorporation  in  1855  of  the 
Hamilton  Law  School,  which  in  1857  a°d  1858  was,  under  Dr.  Dwight, 
graduating  a  dozen  men  each  year  with  the  degree  of  LL.B. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  in  1858-9  there  was  no  Senior  Class  at 
Columbia,  but  when  I  entered,  in  October,  1859,  there  were  35  Seniors 
and  25  Juniors.  I  entered  the  Senior  Class,  but  attended  all  the  Junior 
recitations  from  October,  1859,  to  May,  1860,  and  may  say  with  perfect 
truth  that  during  that  entire  year  there  was  not  a  word  uttered  by 
Dr.  Dwight  in  the  class-room  to  either  class  that  escaped  me.  There 
was  no  other  teacher.  The  Professor  spent  six  honest,  full  hours  in  in- 
struction each  day,  besides  his  moot-court  work  in  the  evenings.  His 
method  was  almost  wholly  that  of  text-book  and  recitation.  Upon 
a  few  subjects,  where  there  were  no  available  text-books,  he  dictated 
lectures.  We  began  our  two-hour  exercise  with  a  rapid  review  of  the 
previous  lesson  ;  then  followed  one  and  one  half  hours'  advance  upon 
the  thirty  pages  that  was  our  daily  task,  and  afterwards,  if  there  was  a 
lecture,  we  copied  for  fifteen  minutes  from  his  dictation.  Any  one  was 
at  perfect  liberty  to  ask  any  question,  which  was  promptly  answered. 
In  1860  there  was  no  Washburn  on  Real  Estate  and  no  acceptable  book 
upon  Torts.  The  New  York  Court  of  Appeals'  Reports  numbered  only 
sixteen  volumes.  Story,  now  almost  out  of  date,  was  the  great  standard 
authority  in  almost  all  departments  of  law.  The  Junior  Class  began 
with  the  subject  of  personal  rights  in  Kent's  Commentaries,  rapidly 


12  THE  D WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 

reading  portions  of  the  first,  second,  and  third  volumes.  Next  they  took 
"  Parsons  on  Contracts,"  then  in  two  volumes,  and  recited  every  word. 
This  was  followed  by  Greenleaf  s  Cruise  ponderous  on  Real  Estate.  The 
Seniors  began  with  Willard's  Equity  Jurisprudence.  After  completing  it 
they  read  Greenleaf  on  Evidence,  vol.  I.  Following  this  was  Parsons' 
Mercantile  Law.  We  then  took  down  from  Dr.  Dwight's  dictation  a  course 
of  lectures  upon  Torts,  Admiralty,  and  Pleading  and  Practice  under  the 
Code.  This  completed  the  two-years'  course.  In  the  evening  Professor 
Odronaux  gave  a  course  of  lectures  upon  Medical  Jurisprudence,  and 
Dr.  Francis  Lieber  upon  The  State  and  Political  Science.  Occasionally, 
about  once  a  week,  some  eminent  New  York  lawyer — notably  Wm. 
Curtis  Noyes — would  give  a  lecture,  at  which  there  would  be  a  gathering 
of  the  friends  of  the  school.  The  Moot  Courts  were  always  interesting. 
Dr.  Dwight  would  act  as  Chief-Justice  and  two  of  the  Seniors  as  Asso- 
ciates. After  a  case  had  been  argued  by  four  students,  it  would  be 
adjourned  a  week  for  the  Associate  Justices  to  prepare  their  opinions. 
These  were  written  without  consulting  with  the  Chief-Justice,  and  often 
Dr.  Dwight  would  find  his  decisions  overruled  by  those  of  his  Associate 
Justices. 

The  chief  ambition  of  the  school  centred  around  the  prizes.  These 
were  $700,  distributed  in  different  amounts,  the  smallest  being  $100. 
The  prize  examination  occurred  May  10,  1860,  and  consisted  of  75 
printed  questions  and  an  essay  upon  the  New  York  Statute  of  1860 
concerning  the  rights  of  married  women.  Before  me  lies  a  printed  list 
of  these  questions.  The  successful  men  were  the  two  Baldwins,  William 
S.  Ely,  now  deceased,  and  Charlton  M.  Herrick.  Ex-Surrogate  Robert 
C.  Hutchings,  on  account  of  his  popularity,  was  chosen  valedictorian  of 
the  class  at  its  commencement  in  Niblo's  Garden,  in  May,  1860,  an 
account  of  which  I  afterwards  read  in  the  New  York  Tribune,  but  was  not 
present  at  the  time. 

I  think  Dr.  Dwight  was  the  best  teacher,  without  exception,  that  I 
ever  knew.  His  classes  were  so  small  that  each  man  was  regularly  called 
upon  each  day  and  vigorously,  yet  kindly,  cross-examined  upon  the 
lesson.  Even  the  indifferent  and  trifling  had  to  learn  something.  To 
the  diligent  these  recitations  were  perpetual  feasts.  Before  me  are  the 
note-books  in  which  I  took  the  Professor's  remarks  and  lectures.  They 
revive  in  a*  degree  the  old,  inexpressible  charm  of  this  great  law 
teacher. 

LOGANSPORT,  INDIANA,  April  23,  1891. 


EDMUND    WET  MO  RE. 


{Tribute  of  iBbmunfc  Metmore. 

I  can  best  describe  Dr.  Dwight's  peculiar  excellence  as  a  teacher  by  a 
brief  account  of  my  own  experience  as  one  of  his  students. 

I  entered  Columbia  College  Law  School  in  the  autumn  of  1861.  I 
had  spent  the  preceding  year,  being  the  first  year  of  my  law  studies,  in 
the  office  of  one  of  the  leading  lawyers  of  the  city,  and  had  picked  up 
as  much  as  the  average  young  man,  just  graduated  from  college,  gathers 
from  a  year's  experience  in  a  law  office,  and  that  was  almost  nothing.  I 
was  ambitious  and  industrious.  I  read  Kent  and  Blackstone  doggedly ; 
copied  papers  faithfully  (it  was  before  the  days  of  typewriters  and  office 
stenographers) ;  learned  some  of  the  ways  of  the  Sheriff's  and  Register's 
offices  ;  made  a  few  timid  applications  at  Chambers,  where  I  was  ad- 
dressed as  "  Counsellor"  by  Judge  Barnard;  collected  some  miscellaneous 
legal  information,  and  obtained  an  uncertain  grasp  of  a  few  disconnected 
principles.  But  at  the  end  of  twelve  months  little  had  been  gained,  and 
all  was  confusion.  I  was  mentally  bewildered,  and  a  good  deal  discour- 
aged. I  floundered  amid  the  vast  body  of  learning  that  makes  up  the 
law  ;  but  to  appropriate  it,  make  part  of  it  my  own,  and  fashion  from  it 
an  instrument  I  could  handle  as  a  master,  seemed  a  hopeless  task. 

In  this  state  of  mind  I  began  my  attendance  at  Dr.  Dwight's  School. 
He  was  our  sole  instructor.  He  dictated  to  us  from  his  lectures,  we 
read  about  thirty  pages  a  day  in  the  text-book,  and  every  day's  exercises 
began  with  an  oral  examination  of  the  work  of  the  day  before.  To  me, 
the  effect  of  this  method  was  like  the  sunshine  dissipating  a  fog.  Out 
of  chaos  arose  order.  Rules,  fundamental  definitions,  classified  state- 
ments, brought  the  knowledge  that  was  imparted  into  form,  and  fixed  it 
firmly  in  the  mind.  I  instantly  felt  that  I  was  making  progress.  To  my 
fellow-students  and  myself  came  that  delightful  intellectual  pleasure  and 
stimulus  that  springs  from  the  consciousness  of  knowledge  acquired  and 
power  developed.  All  our  earnestness  and  enthusiasm  were  awakened. 
We  used  to  meet  in  the  old  quarters  in  Lafayette  Place,  and  as  we 
gathered  for  the  recitation,  or  came  trooping  out  afterwards,  we  discussed 
the  subject-matter  of  our  studies  with  eager  interest. 

13 


i4  THE  D WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 

The  course  was  only  two  years,  but,  earnestly  and  enthusiastically 
pursued,  it  resulted  in  laying  a  broad  foundation,  upon  which  the  super- 
structure raised  by  subsequent  studies  and  the  experiences  of  actual 
practice  could  firmly  rest. 

I  have  given  some  time  and  thought  to  the  subject  of  different 
methods  of  college  instruction,  and  I  believe  that,  as  a  preparation  for 
the  legal  profession,  Dr.  Dwight's  system  of  teaching  is  that  which  expe- 
rience has  shown  to  be  the  best ;  and  certainly,  he  himself,  as  a  teacher, 
has  had  few  rivals  in  this  country.  The  controlling  principle  of  his 
system  is  the  inculcation  of  the  elementary  rules  of  law  applicable  to  its 
leading  branches,  by  presenting  them  in  the  clearest  and  simplest  form, 
under  a  carefully  studied  and  logical  arrangement,  and  fixing  them  in 
the  mind  by  apt  illustration  and  the  drill  of  recitation  and  review.  The 
consequence  is  that  the  student  bears  away  with  him  that  which  he  never 
forgets.  He  has  stamped  upon  his  memory  an  outline  within  which  the 
results  of  all  future  labors  naturally  and  readily  fall.  He  has  the  basis 
upon  which  to  rest  the  science  of  legal  reasoning — the  best  equipment 
for  the  future  development  of  his  powers.  There  is  no  student  of  Dr. 
Dwight  who  has  faithfully  followed  his  profession  since  he  left  the 
School,  who  will  not  heartily  confirm  my  words.  And  still  more  heartily 
will  all  his  old  students  bear  witness  to  his  charm  and  genius  as  a  teacher. 
Age  and  experience  have  not  lowered  the  high  estimate  of  his  powers  in 
this  respect  which  was  formed  when  under  his  instruction,  nor  time 
lessened  the  affectionate  and  enthusiastic  regard  in  which  he  is  held. 
The  profession  at  large,  and  this  city  in  particular,  and  beyond  all,  the 
College  with  which  he  has  been  so  long  connected,  owes  him  a  debt  of 
gratitude.  What  Dr.  Arnold  was  to  Rugby,  Dr.  Dwight  has  been  to 
the  Columbia  College  Law  School. 

He  has  done  much  to  raise  the  standard  of  preparation  for  the  Bar, 
much  for  the  scientific  study  of  the  law.  Gratefully  each  of  us,  who 
enjoyed  the  inestimable  privilege  of  his  instruction  and  friendship,  will 
repeat  the  words  of  Rome's  great  orator  to  his  teacher :  Hunc  ego  non 
diligam,  non  admirer,  non  omni  ratione  defendendum  putem  ? 

NEW  YORK,  April  27,  1891. 


HENRY  HOLT.  15 


tribute  of  Ibenrp  Ibolt 

To  one  who  had  never  sat  under  Professor  Dwight's  instruction, 
though  hardly  to  one  who  had,  it  might  seem  strange  that  a  pupil  who 
graduated  nearly  thirty  years  ago,  and  has  never  practised  law,  should 
find  reasons  for  accepting  the  invitation  to  testify  here  to  the  good  that 
Professor  Dwight's  instruction  has  done  him.  Yet  there  are  such 
reasons,  and  the  invitation  has  brought  them  to  mind  very  promptly. 
Though  I  have  had  little  "  practical "  use  for  his  teachings,  I  shall  always 
regard  being  under  them  as  among  the  greatest  advantages  of  my  life. 

It  was  a  high  and  rare  education  day  by  day  to  watch  his  mind  work- 
ing calmly  and  smoothly  despite  the  interruption  of  constant  questions, 
and  to  each  question  promptly  turning  out  an  answer  illuminating  one  of 
the  most  complex  of  human  sciences. 

But  there  was  a  still  more  important  side  to  what  he  did  for  us.  In- 
tellectual training  and  special  knowledge  are  probably  far  from  the  most 
valuable  things  that  a  pupil  takes  away  from  a  teacher  really  great. 
The  grasp  of  men  and  circumstances  which,  despite  those  constant  inter- 
ruptions and  digressions,  enabled  Professor  Dwight  to  get  through  each 
day's  regular  task  in  its  regular  time,  or  at  least  to  make  those  of  a  few 
day's  average  into  their  allotted  time,  was  another  education.  The  class 
was  not  a  small  "  seminar  "  seated  around  a  table,  but  a  crowd  of  three- 
or  fourscore  youths  with  the  proverbial  modesty  of  the  recent  graduate, 
and  the  interruptions  were  not  always  intelligent,  or  even  polite. 
But  they  were  always  welcomed  with  an  urbanity  which  was,  and  to  me, 
for  one,  has  always  since  been,  simply  a  great  moral  inspiration.  It  has 
never  been  my  privilege,  as  it  has  doubtless  been  that  of  those  of  Profes- 
sor Dwight's  pupils  who  practised  his  profession,  to  find  some  reminis- 
cence of  his  teachings  coming  up  and  helping  at  some  critical  moment ; 
but  I  am  sure  that  it  has  been  the  privilege  of  us  all,  through  the  whole 
arduous  discipline  of  life,  in  moments  where  calmness  and  urbanity  were 
the  great  and  difficult  need,  to  have  the  reminiscence  of  his  example 
come  up  as  an  incentive  and  support,  an  influence  toward  patience  and 
kindness,  and  a  source  of  guidance  and  growth. 

NEW  YORK,  April  27,  1891. 


THE  D  WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 


{Tribute  of  franklin  flDaclDeigfx 

It  would  be  almost  ungracious  to  yield  to  our  disappointment  at 
Dr.  Dwight's  resignation  instead  of  subordinating  it  to  a  grateful 
acknowledgment  of  our  rich  possession  in  the  work  he  has  so  amply 
done.  One  could  not  wish  to  linger  in  an  attitude  that  might  obscure 
even  for  a  moment  our  appreciation  of  his  distinguished  usefulness. 

And  it  is  conceivable  that  we  may  a  little  assist  his  usefulness  by 
recalling  some  of  those  characteristics  of  Dr.  Dwight  which  have  made 
his  work  so  successful.  For  myself,  I  like  to  recall  that  almost  peculiar 
gift  of  his,  which  made  upon  my  mind  the  first  striking  and  indelible 
impression  when  I  came  within  his  influence ;  I  mean  his  rare  gift  of 
teaching.  His  professional  learning  and  intellectual  strength  were 
evident  to  every  one,  of  course,  but  I  had  been  accustomed  to  professors 
who  were  distinguished  scholars  and  men  of  strength.  It  was  Dr. 
Dwight's  extraordinary  fitness  for  teaching  that  was  so  remarkable  as 
to  be  absolutely  new.  It  seemed  to  me  to  rise  to  a  distinction.  It 
happened  in  my  experience — which  was  scarcely  individual — of  the 
academy,  the  private  tutor,  and  the  usual  college  course,  that  I  had  not 
once  fallen  into  the  hands  of  a  man  who  had  been  distinctly  born  to 
teach ;  and  Dr.  Dwight  was,  therefore,  an  almost  entire  surprise.  He 
was  a  revelation. 

We  have  made  a  good  beginning  of  progress  in  the  art  of  teaching 
since  we  first  were  astonished  by  the  natural  gifts  and  the  fine  training 
of  this  great  teacher,  and  the  chance  of  a  new  sensation  such  as  fell 
to  Dr.  Dwight's  students  of  my  day  is  happily  passing  away.  I  am  not 
competent  to  estimate  accurately  the  influence  of  Dr.  Dwight  in  this 
progress,  but  it  must  have  been  very  considerable ;  for  he  stood  at  the 
beginning  so  almost  alone  as  a  great  teacher  that  he  produced  the  effect 
of  discovery.  For  the  first  time  we  knew  that  teaching  might  be  a  great 
art  and  a  distinguished  profession ;  that  it  was  not  a  mere  pot-boiler  for 
learning,  not  a  mere  material  resource  for  learned  men,  and  not  a  mere 
fellowship  for  the  support  of  advanced  scholars.  And  for  the  first  time  we 
saw  clearly  that  learning  was  but  one  requisite  in  teaching,  and  but  one 
qualification  for  a  professorship ;  and  not  the  first  requisite  or  qualifica- 


FORMER     LAW     SCHOOL,     LAFAYETTE     PLACE 


FRANKLIN  MACVEIGH.  17 

tion,  since  over  and  above  all  was  the  natural  gift  and  the  special 
training. 

One  of  the  striking  effects  of  Dr.  Dwight's  great  gift — and  the  only 
one  I  shall  have  space  to  mention — was  an  unfailing  power  to  make 
every  man  in  his  class  a  genuine  student.  Every  one  yielded  to  the 
spell  whatever  may  have  been  his  previous  training  or  habits.  If  he 
had  idled  in  college,  he  at  once  quit  his  idle  ways ;  if  he  came  to  study 
law  as  a  pastime,  he  quickly  found  himself  unexpectedly  earnest ;  if  he 
was  aiming  at  an  ornamental  profession,  he  fell  immediately  into  habits 
of  serious  work.  We  could  not  be  discriminated,  whatever  the  variety 
of  purpose  with  which  we  entered  the  school. 

It  would  not  be  easy  to  too  much  admire  this  interesting  power,  nor 
to  overestimate  the  importance  of  one  who  could  so  strongly  affect  and 
influence  large  numbers  of  the  intellectual  young  men  of  his  time.  There 
have  been  in  the  last  five  years  very  few  American  positions  of  such 
exceeding  influence  as  Dr.  Dwight's  chair  in  the  Columbia  Law  School ; 
and  it  is  right  to  add  that  few  Americans  have  withdrawn  from  positions 
of  great  influence  accompanied  by  as  much  active  affection  as  will  eagerly 
follow  Dr.  Dwight  into  his  regretted  retirement. 

CHICAGO,  ILL.,  April  27,  1891. 


1 8  THE  D WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 


tribute  of  3ames  IRicbarfcs. 

Professor  Dwight's  title  to  lasting  fame  will  rest  upon  his  pre-emi- 
nence as  a  teacher  of  law.  He  has  been  a  Judge  of  our  highest  Court; 
an  advocate  engaged  in  weightiest  cases  ;  foremost  as  a  citizen  in  po- 
litical reforms  and  in  opposing  mischievous  legislation  ;  but  it  is  as  Pro- 
fessor of  Municipal  Law  in  the  Columbia  Law  School  for  nearly  a  third 
of  a  century  that  he  is  best  known  and  distinguished  amongst  us.  For 
many  years  he  was  the  Law  School. 

He  built  up,  upon  his  own  methods,  a  School  of  Law  not  second  to 
any  in  prosperity  and  to  be  a  graduate  of  which  was  ever  after  a  matter 
of  pride  and  a  help  to  success. 

Professor  Dwight's  methods  in  teaching  are  worth  considering ;  he 
impressed  every  student  with  the  feeling  that  he  was  his  genuine  friend, 
and  whenever  he  meets  one  of  his  pupils,  old  or  new,  he  meets  a  man  who 
greets  him  not  only  with  his  hand  but  with  his  heart.  His  students,  he 
assumed,  were  in  the  school  to  learn  law  and  not  "  eating  terms,"  hence, 
he  had  no  system  of  grading  recitations,  and  there  was  no  roll-call. 

He  never  mortified  a  student ;  if  an  answer  were  manifestly  wrong,  he 
would  say :  "  Would  you  not  rather  say  it  is  so  and  so." 

Sometimes  he  would  put  to  every  student  in  turn  the  same  supposed 
case  and  ask  him  his  opinion  upon  it,  and  after  each  had  answered,  give 
the  true  solution.  This  afforded  an  opportunity  to  the  clever  ones  to 
make  a  little  proper  display.  We  learned  very  much,  too,  by  the  ques- 
tions which  we  asked  of  him  in  the  class-room  and  which  he,  like  another 
Socrates,  freely  encouraged. 

In  the  moot  courts,  held  each  Friday,  he  presided,  and,  after  the  ar- 
gument, the  vote  of  the  class  was  taken.  A  week  later  he  rendered  his 
decision. 

The  secret  of  Professor  Dwight's  success  lies  in  the  fact  that  there  is 
no  sham  about  him.  He  is  thoroughly  equipped.  A  biographer  of 
Charles  James  Fox  said  of  the  latter  that  he  was  successful  as  a  par- 
liamentary debater  because  he  first  so  clearly  presented  the  subject  to  his 
own  mind  that  he  could  not  fail  in  the  utmost  clearness  to  others.  Pro- 
fessor Dwight  knoivs  and  he  can  explain  what  he  knows. 

NEW  YORK,  May  7,  1891. 


GEORGE  W.   VAN  SICLEN.  19 


tribute  of  (Beorge  M.  Dan  Siclen* 

Secretary  Ibollana  "Crust  Company. 

With  inborn  sweet  gentleness  almost  womanly,  with  manly  firmness, 
with  consideration  for  the  feelings  of  others  and  a  kindly  interest  in 
their  affairs,  with  native  dignity  of  bearing,  with  gentle  humor  and 
quick  but  harmless  wit,  a  born  teacher,  touching  upon  and  training  the 
best  qualities  of  mind  of  all  his  pupils,  teaching  them  to  think  for 
themselves  and  where  to  look  for  and  to  find  the  learning  with  which  his 
own  mind  overflowed,  a  man  of  honor,  without  a  word  inculcating 
honorable  conduct  and  practice,  religious  without  obtruding  upon  the 
sect  or  faith  of  any,  a  cultivated  Christian  gentleman,  Theodore  W. 
Dwight  takes  with  him  into  retirement  from  active  life,  and  will  take 
with  him  into  the  grave,  and  into  that  happy  land  where  all  who  have 
known  him  will  hope  to  join  him,  the  love  of  over  four  thousand  strong 
studious  minds,  who  in  the  past  thirty  years  have  felt  the  lasting  effects 
of  his  genial  power  as  the  earth's  latent  forces  feel  the  beneficent  power 
of  the  sun  to  develop  them. 

NEW  YORK,  April  21,  1891. 


20  THE  D  WIGHT  TRIE  UTE. 


{Tribute  of  William  <L  Witter. 

"  Many  are  the  thyrsus-bearers  but  few  are  the  mystics."  In  the  days 
of  the  Academic  Grove  and  Porch,  when  the  philosopher  and  the  edu- 
cator in  the  highest  sense  were  one,  the  immortal  educator  seeing,  as  it 
is  related  in  the  Phaedo,  how  few  were  the  true  philosophers,  is  made  to 
utter  the  words  above  quoted. 

During  the  past  half  century  this  country  has  been  favored  with  two 
great  educators,  who  were  men  of  the  true  philosophy,  educators  in  the 
highest  sense :  the  earlier,  Francis  Wayland,  whose  individuality  and 
scholarship  lifted  a  seat  of  learning  at  Providence,  Rhode  Island,  into  a 
repute  enjoyed  even  to-day  by  few  of  the  colleges  of  the  land  ;  the  later, 
Theodore  Dwight  Woolsey,  whose  personality  and  learning  broadened 
and  firmly  fixed  the  University  at  New  Haven  in  the  high  position  it 
still  enjoys ;  and  now  in  somewhat  later  years  has  appeared  a  third  edu- 
cator, Theodore  Woolsey  Dwight,  whose  distinguished  personal  character 
and  intellectual  equipment  have  raised  the  level  of  legal  scholarship  and 
of  moral  purpose  in  this  metropolitan  State  of  New  York,  while  at  the 
same  time  he  has  created  and  maintained  by  the  sheer  force  of  his  almost 
unaided  ability  and  personal  influence  a  great  centre  of  legal  instruction. 
Large  as  is  the  public  debt  to  each  of  these  eminent  instructors  of 
modern  days  for  their  lasting  contributions,  respectively,  to  the  science 
of  moral  philosophy,  of  international  law,  and  of  applied  jurisprudence 
yet,  after  all,  the  quality  which  in  each  of  them  takes  precedence  above 
every  other  endowment,  and  shines  with  a  lustre  brighter  than  that  shed 
by  any  kind  of  mere  learning,  is  the  inspiring  and  ennobling  personal 
character  which  has  illuminated  their  pathway.  "  Men  appear  from  time 
to  time,"  says  Emerson,  "  who  receive  with  more  purity  and  fulness 
these  high  communications.  The  highest  of  these  not  so  much  give 
particular  knowledge  as  they  elevate  by  sentiment  and  by  their  habitual 
grandeur  of  view."  This  commendation  is  pre-eminently  applicable  to 
Professor  Dwight.  Without  ever  a  word  or  any  demeanor  of  profession, 
but  always  as  himself  an  inquirer  after  truth,  he  has  imparted  to  that 
title  new  meaning,  in  the  deliberate  estimation  not  of  boys  or  youths, 
but  of  men  already  impressed  with  the  significance  of  living  to  some 


WILLIAM  C.    WITTER. 


purpose.  It  is  not  law  that  he  has  taught  so  much  as  justice.  If  the 
student  has  not  discerned  how  a  rule  or  axiom  has  its  foundation  some- 
where in  the  distinctions  of  absolute  right  and  wrong,  new  light  is  thrown 
upon  the  subject,  new  illustrations  drawn  from  an  exhaustless  treasury 
of  wisdom,  the  ideal  distinction  is  sketched,  till  it  has  seemed  that  the 
speaker  was  in  touch  with  the  very  fountains  of  equity.  It  is  not  so 
much  details  of  legal  learning  that  he  has  sought  to  impart  as  a  breadth 
of  view  proceeding  from  a  breadth  of  character  built  upon  the  very 
reason  of  things  and  with  which  few  are  endowed.  When  any  respond- 
ing cord  has  existed  in  the  student  it  was  certain  to  be  touched.  His 
character  is  an  illuminated  and  illuminating  character.  The  Columbia 
College  Law  School  has  through  his  influence  been  not  merely  a  school 
for  legal  learning  but  a  school  for  character. 

Accompanying  and  shining  through  his  more  conspicuous  qualities 
has  been  ever  perceptible  the  good  cheer  of  a  calm,  self-contained,  con- 
templative soul  exhaling  unwearying  kindliness  and  patience  which  are 
unobscured  in  the  memories  of  some  who  have  for  a  score  of  years  carried 
his  wise  and  luminous  portrait  in  their  hearts.  As  Crito  says  to  the 
great  instructor,  "  For  men  will  love  you  in  other  places  to  which  you 
may  go  and  not  in  Athens  only." 

The  youth,  the  citizen,  the  state  are  alike  legatees  of  his  best  posses- 
sions. Whether  upon  the  bench  or  at  the  bar,  whether  seeking  by  active 
effort  and  more  passive  example  to  purify  the  corrupt  civic  practices  of 
the  day,  or  pursuing  his  more  especial  vocation  of  the  educator,  his  life 
commands  a  sincere  admiration.  He  evidently  is  persuaded  that  "  above 
and  beyond  what  we  may  perceive  through  the  senses  there  exist  ideals 
which  alone  are  true  things." 

May  it  not  well  be  said  of  him,  in  the  words  of  his  immortal  proto- 
type, that  he  was  "  attuned  to  the  Dorian  mood,  which  is  a  harmony  of 
words  and  deeds"? 

NEW  YORK,  April  n,  1891. 


22  THE  D WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 


tribute  of  flDorris  W.  Seymour* 

As  a  teacher,  Dr.  Theodore  Woolsey  Dwight  is  known  and  loved 
by  thousands  of  the  legal  profession  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  but  as 
highly  and  justly  as  he  is  esteemed  in  that  character,  it  is  as  a  jurist  that 
his  reputation  will  live  in  the  years  to  come.  To  such  as  have  had  the 
benefit  of  his  instruction,  it  is  a  matter  of  perhaps  selfish  congratulation, 
that  he  has  resisted  the  numerous  opportunities  that  have  been  offered 
him  of  judicial  preferment,  but  when  one  reads  the  learned  and  discrimi- 
nating opinions  written  by  him,  as  one  of  the  Commissioners  of  Appeals, 
in  the  57th,  6ist,  and  6$th  volumes  of  the  New  York  Reports,  it  seems 
a  misfortune  that  the  science  of  law  should  have  been  deprived  of  so 
learned  and  able  an  expounder.  In  the  178  cases  reported  in  these 
volumes,  Dr.  Dwight  writes  concurring  and  dissenting  opinions  in  68. 
Both  time  and  space  forbid  an  extended  review  of  these  decisions.  It 
so  happens  that  but  few  of  these  involve  questions  which  will  mark  them 
as  "  leading  cases  "  ;  but  they  present  for  consideration  an  unusual  variety 
of  questions,  and  for  their  proper  disposition  require  the  discussion  of  a 
large  number  of  legal  principles.  Such,  for  example,  as  the  interpretation 
and  construction  of  the  manufacturing  act  of  1848,  the  conveyance  made 
by  religious  societies,  the  extending  of  the  law  of  trade-marks  to  the  pro- 
tection of  business  names,  the  discussion  of  the  limited-liability  and 
removal  acts  of  Congress  as  affecting  the  jurisdiction  of  State  courts. 
Where  can  one  find  the  qualifications  and  limitations  properly  applicable 
to  the  distinction  between  servant  and  contractor  more  carefully  pointed 
out,  than  in  the  dissenting  opinion  in  McCafferty  against  Railroad,  or  the 
subject  of  barratry  more  learnedly  discussed  than  in  Atkinson  against 
Insurance  Company?  The  review  of  the  rules  applicable  to  that  section 
of  the  statute  of  frauds,  which  require  the  sale  of  goods  in  certain  cases 
to  be  evidenced  in  writing,  in  Cooke  against  Millard,  is  a  contribution  to 
the  law  upon  that  subject  for  which  all  lawyers,  no  matter  where  prac- 
tising, will  be  grateful.  The  same  is  equally  true  of  numerous  decisions 
pertaining  to  negotiable  paper,  especially  as  affected  by  its  theft,  forgery, 
and  loss ;  of  equitable  conversion,  of  dower,  of  partnership,  and  the  cove- 
nant of  quiet  enjoyment.  It  may  be  truthfully  said  of  substantially  all 


MORRIS  W.  SEYMOUR.  23 

these  opinions  that  they  are  monographs,  exhausting  the  particular 
subject  under  discussion.  We  doubt  whether,  in  any  reports,  a  greater 
amount  of  learning  is  anywhere  condensed  into  an  equal  number  of 
pages. 

It  is,  however,  to  the  picture  drawn  in  these  opinions,  and  all  the 
more  powerfully,  because  unconsciously  and  unintentionally  drawn,  of  the 
just  and  learned  judge,  that  we  call  particular  attention  to  them.  One  sees 
between  the  lines  of  the  printed  page  the  working  of  a  trained  mind,  in- 
tent on  finding  out  first  how  the  particular  case  ought  to  be  decided,  that 
right  may  prevail ;  next,  how  that  object  is  to  be  obtained  without  over- 
riding any  principle  of  law,  the  preservation  of  which  is  of  vastly  more 
consequence  than  the  particular  case  in  hand ;  and  lastly,  the  mind,  alert 
to  discriminate  between  sophistry  and  truth,  the  husk  and  the  kernel,  the 
things  that  the  law,  if  it  would  remain  a  science,  must  slough  off,  and 
those  it  must  guard  as  eternal. 

BRIDGEPORT,  CT.,  April  22,  1891. 


24  THE  D  WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 


tribute  of  Ibenr^  1R.  Beefcman. 

Few  are  fortunate  enough  to  witness  the  full  fruition  of  the  labors  of 
a  busy  life  spent  in  intellectual  work.  Especially  is  this  true  of  the  edu- 
cator, whose  efforts  are  addressed  to  the  mental  training  of  those  whose 
success  or  failure  in  the  activities  of  life  within  the  measure  of  a  genera- 
tion can  alone  be  appealed  to  as  evidence  of  their  intellectual  equipment. 

Among  these  favored  few  Professor  Dwight  enjoys  the  rare  privilege 
of  being  ranked.  During  the  period  of  thirty  years  which  span  his 
service  in  the  School  of  Law  of  Columbia  College,  he  has  seen  young  men 
whom  he  has  trained  for  a  professional  career,  and  inspired  with  enthusi- 
asm for  the  science  to  which  he  was  devoted,  practising  their  profession 
with  success  and  attaining  the  highest  honors  which  the  Law  can  bestow 
upon  her  faithful  votaries.  They  are  to  be  found  conspicuous  among 
the  younger  leaders  of  the  Bar ;  on  the  benches  of  our  highest  courts ; 
in  legislative  assemblies,  and  other  departments  of  the  public  service. 
The  habits  of  investigation,  the  logical  processes  of  reasoning,  and 
facility  in  sifting  facts  and  marshalling  them  in  their  proper  relations, 
which  characterize  the  successful  lawyer,  fit  him  especially  for  the  duties 
of  public  life,  and  it  is,  therefore,  inevitable  that,  in  its  pursuit,  he  should 
distance  all  other  competitors  in  a  country  where  rapid  rotation  in  office 
is  the  rule  and  special  training  for  public  affairs  is  utterly  discouraged. 

The  influence,  therefore,  upon  public  as  well  as  private  affairs,  which 
those  exercise  whose  privilege  it  is  to  expound  the  great  science  of  human 
affairs,  is  far-reaching  and  profound,  and  the  responsibility  they  assume 
correlatively  great. 

It  is  for  the  great  ability  and  conscientiousness  which  he  brought  to 
the  discharge  of  this  responsibility,  and  the  widespread  usefulness  and 
importance  of  the  results  of  his  life-work,  that  Professor  Dwight's  name 
will  always  arrest  attention  and  command  respect. 

To  us,  now  reaching  the  milestone  of  middle  life  and  looking  back 
to  the  days  spent  in  his  lecture  room,  the  recollections  are  of  the  bright- 
est and  kindliest.  His  treatment  of  the  students  was  dignified  and 
marked  by  extreme  courtesy.  The  love  for  his  profession  was  so  intense 
that  it  was  an  unconscious  emanation  which  sympathetically  affected 


HENR  Y  £.  BEEKMAN.  25 

those  who  came  within  the  sphere  of  his  influence.  He  claimed  for  it  all 
its  ancient  prestige  as  an  honorable  profession  which  was  degraded  by  its 
pursuit  exclusively  for  its  emoluments. 

The  methods  of  instruction  which  he  adopted  seem  to  me  now,  even 
more  than  at  the  time  I  was  pursuing  them,  to  have  been  particularly 
happy.  The  daily  recitation  from  the  text-book  gave  occasion  for  the 
running  comment  of  the  Professor,  in  which  the  reason  for  each  legal 
principle  was  justified  by  logical  necessity,  or  by  some  consideration  of 
public  policy,  or  by  appeals  to  historical  evidences  of  its  origin  in  politi- 
cal conditions  or  exigencies  of  a  bygone  age.  The  history  of  the  develop- 
ment of  a  rule  of  law,  its  modifications  and  exceptions,  were  illustrated 
by  the  citation  of  and  comment  upon  reported  cases  in  which  they  found 
embodiment,  and  this  exposition  would  be  fittingly  crowned  by  some 
pithy  phrase,  or  by  one  of  those  wonderful  maxims  of  the  law  he  was  so 
fond  of  citing,  which  gave  the  very  essence  of  the  doctrine  and  fastened 
it  for  all  time  in  the  minds  of  his  hearers.  The  attention  of  the  student 
was  thus  directed  to  the  constructive  processes  by  which  the  body  of  our 
law  has  been  built  up  as  the  occasions  of  the  people  demanded.  He 
came  to  know  not  only  what  the  law  was,  but  why  it  was  so,  and  was 
thus  prepared  to  apply  it  with  intelligence  and  in  harmony  with  that 
principle  of  natural  development  which  is  the  life  of  the  common  law. 

Few  who  have  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  sitting  under  the  instruction 
of  Professor  Dvvight  have  failed  to  recognize  the  value  to  them  in  their 
professional  careers  of  the  rich  stores  of  learning  which  he  so  freely  offered 
for  their  acceptance.  There  are  none  surely  who  at  some  time  have 
not  felt  their  difficulties  vanish  with  the  recollection  of  some  principle 
explained  and  applied  in  his  lecture  room. 

Professor  Dvvight  is  entitled  to  the  proud  distinction  of  having  estab- 
lished in  this  great  city  the  first  school  in  which  the  the  study  of  the  law 
was  pursued  on  scientific  principles.  The  renown  which  the  Law  School 
of  Columbia  College  has  justly  won  throughout  the  country  is  his.  The 
attraction  which  it  exerted  in  drawing  its  army  of  students  to  its  classes 
sprang  from  his  personal  qualities  and  methods  as  an  instructor,  and  it  is 
due  to  him  that  at  this  great  centre  of  influence,  "  reading  law  "  has 
become  the  study  of  a  system  of  jurisprudence. 

NEW  YORK,  April  21,  1891. 


26  THE  D  WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 


tribute  of  (Ben.  Ibenrp  Efcwin  ^remain. 

A  few  words  about  one  of  the  famous  litigations  in  which  Dr.  Dwight 
was  a  prominent  figure. 

Selected  by  the  parties  as  referee  in  the  case  of  Marie  and  others 
against  Garrison,  he  was  called  upon  to  weigh  a  complicated  state  of  cir- 
cumstances including  many  other  lawsuits  connected  with  the  extensive 
controversy  of  which  the  case  before  him  was  an  essential  branch.  The 
plaintiffs  claimed  an  agreement  under  which  they  were  as  stockholders  to 
desist  from  defending  the  foreclosure  of  a  dubious  mortgage  on  the  Pa- 
cific Railroad  of  Missouri ;  and  the  defendant  Garrison  was  to  buy  in  that 
railroad  property,  to  re-organize  its  corporation  on  a  stipulated  basis,  and 
to  apportion  to  the  plaintiffs  their  stock  equivalents  in  the  new  organi- 
zation. The  defendant  Garrison  having  consequently  foreclosed,  did 
purchase  and  re-organize,  but  omitted  to  recognize  the  plaintiffs'  stock, 
and  denied  any  obligation  to  do  so. 

The  foreclosure  itself  was  peculiar  in  many  features.  It  proceeded 
upon  the  non-payment  of  the  first  interest  due  under  a  fresh  mortgage 
made  by  the  same  Board  that  caused  the  default ;  while  the  default  itself 
occurred  at  a  time  when  the  mortgagor  road  was  earning  not  only  inter- 
est but  dividends.  The  mortgage  bonds  had  been  absorbed  by  the  same 
directors  who  acted  as  directors  of  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  Railroad 
Company ; — an  insolvent  corporation  whose  directors  had  acquired  the 
control  of  the  Pacific  Railroad  of  Missouri.  A  lease  was  the  device 
resorted  to  by  which  the  two  roads  were  linked  under  the  same  governing 
individuals  who  constituted  themselves  into  the  two  separate  Boards 
of  Directors ;  and  with  whom  the  defendant  Garrison  was  operating. 
Under  these  auspices,  together  with  the  further  guise  of  a  worthless 
dividend  guarantee  by  the  insolvent  road  on  a  new  issue  of  stock  by 
the  Pacific  Railroad  of  Missouri,  a  large  speculation  and  investment  was 
induced  in  that  stock  then  selling  at  an  apparently  low  price. 

By  the  time  the  public  were  sufficiently  "  let  in"  and  the  new  issue 
fairly  popularized,  the  mortgage  had  been  created,  and  bonds  under  it 
furtively  issued.  Default  in  the  first  interest  speedily  followed,  with 
swift  foreclosure  proceedings  effectively  pursued.  The  slightest  active 
opposition  or  noise  would  necessarily  have  thwarted  the  scheme.  Thus 
it  came  about  that  the  Garrison  agreement  to  protect  the  plaintiffs'  in- 
terest was  relied  upon  on  the  one  hand,  and  was  resisted  on  the  other 


GEN.  HENRY  EDWIN  TREMAIN.  27 

hand,  in  a  struggle  which,  having  once  gone  to  the  Court  of  Appeals  on 
demurrer,  culminated  before  Dr.  Dwight  in  final  hearings  on  the  merits. 

The  battles  raged  with  increasing  bitterness  as  they  progressed 
through  upwards  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  hearings  ;  and  attracted  the 
attention  of  financial,  legal,  and  journalistic  circles  throughout  the  country. 
Even  the  camps  of  the  respective  contestants  were  rife  with  dissensions. 
Proceedings  in  diverse  jurisdictions  and  involving  numerous  parties 
nominal  and  actual  had  to  be  investigated  and  balanced  ;  and  ultimately 
the  fundamental  agreement  sued  upon  was  vitally  assailed  as  within  the 
Statute  of  Frauds. 

It  was  after,  if  not  in  consequence  of,  the  exhaustive  and  unanswer- 
able opinion  of  Dr.  Dwight  on  this  topic — an  opinion  which  practically 
terminated  the  defence — that  an  assault  was  made  which  a  less  learned 
and  courageous  referee  might  have  deemed  humiliating. 

His  affability  and  patience  were  treated  as  timidity  and  doubt,  while 
his  liberalities  were  perverted  by  those  favored  through  them  into  legal 
offences.  The  attempt  on  these  grounds  to  remove  him  as  referee,  how- 
ever, ignominiously  failed.  An  alternative  Writ  of  Prohibition  against 
him  was  then  secured ;  but  the  motion  to  make  this  writ  absolute  was 
never  decided.  The  death  of  the  defendant  Garrison  occurred,  and  this 
resulted  in  a  settlement  of  all  the  litigations  involved. 

The  opinion  of  Dr.  Dwight  is  in  itself  a  treatise  upon  the  Statute  of 
Frauds. 

The  judicial  repose,  pungent  reasoning,  and  fearless  conclusions  ex- 
hibited by  him  in  his  treatment  of  the  issues  in  this  notable  cause,  and 
the  relentless  application  through  a  web  of  legal  intricacies  of  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  law  and  equity,  help  to  make  up  a  severe  standard 
of  judicial  industry  and  of  learning,  that  may  fairly  be  contrasted  rather 
than  compared  with  many  of  the  lazy  compilations  currently  reported  in 
the  books  to-day  as  "  opinions.  " 

The  methodical  attacks  which  were  fruitlessly  made  on  Dr.  Dwight  in 
connection  with  his  rulings  in  this  case,  have  served  to  intensify  his  fame 
as  a  jurist ;  and  justify  this  allusion  to  a  brief  space  in  his  professional 
career  that  was  not  without  its  tribulations  and  triumphs. 

Thirty  years  ago  the  writer  was  under  the  tuition  of  Dr.  (then  Pro- 
fessor) Dwight  in  the  third  class  which  had  entered  the  Columbia  Col- 
lege Law  School ; — a  school  which,  it  is  no  discredit  to  others  to  say, 
Professor  Dwight  had  then  by  his  own  personality  already  firmly  estab- 
lished. The  shock  of  war  had  been  felt  before  the  second  class  had  been 
graduated  ;  and  Columbia  Law  School  experienced  its  fair  share  of  con- 
sequent personal  losses. 


28  THE  D  WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 

Earnest  and  abiding  as  were  Professor  Dwight's  political  convictions 
in  those  perilous  years  of  national  excitement,  his  collegiate  discourses 
traversed  the  constitutional,  historical,  and  political  topics  naturally  be- 
longing to  the  equipment  of  an  American  lawyer,  with  the  serene  com- 
posure and  scientific  poise  that  characterized  all  his  work  in  the  class- 
room. In  the  domain  of  what  is  now  recognized  as  Political  Science,  he 
associated  with  himself  its  leading  American  writer  of  that  day,  Dr. 
Francis  Lieber;  and  both  men  taught  and  inspired  the  study  of  the  true 
political  philosophy  of  the  United  States  and  their  laws,  as  no  two  men 
have  since  united  in  doing.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  not  since  the 
days  of  the  old  "  King's  College  "  and  its  inspirations  to  and  through 
Alexander  Hamilton  the  student,  as  well  as  through  Alexander  Hamilton 
the  publicist  and  statesman,  has  there  been  a  purer  well  of  political 
thought,  flowing  abundantly  into  the  great  arteries  of  American  public 
life,  and  silently  accomplishing  results  which  even  victorious  armies  need 
not  to  have  anticipated. 

No  man  probably  since  the  time  of  Story  has  been  so  potential  in 
guiding  the  inquiries  and  in  furnishing  the  historical  logic,  by  which 
practical  publicists  have  solved  American  problems.  Not  that  all  such 
problems  are  already  solved ;  nor  that  all  solutions  thus  far  have  been 
made  by  Columbia  graduates ;  but  that  the  salutary  influences  and 
exceptional  intensity  cast  out  through  the  daily  teachings  and  writings 
of  this  remarkable  man  to  his  peculiar  and  extensive  constituencies, 
comprise  a  feature  exceeding  the  limits  of  a  career  exclusively  profes- 
sional ; — a  career  measurable  only  in  common  with  other  events  in  the 
history  of  the  generation  to  which  it  belongs. 

The  personality  which  has  created  and  sustained  his  large  con- 
stituency is  too  valuable  to  become  obscured  by  resignation  from  the 
active  duties  of  daily  instruction  in  the  Law  School. 

A  score  of  years  after  his  greatest  victories  Von  Moltke  impressed 
himself  upon  a  new  generation  of  his  own  people,  and  constructed  a  new 
army  for  the  empire.  England's  most  renowned  living  statesman  heeds 
not  a  ripe  old  age,  but  yields  his  accepted  service  and  sagacious  counsel 
to  a  grateful  public.  So  then  may  the  few  Columbia  men  who  are 
privileged  to  express  themselves  here,  earnestly  hope  that  for  yet  many 
long  years  the  Empire  State  and  the  people  of  this  country  may  avail 
themselves  of  the  great  learning,  experience,  wisdom,  and  example  of  the 
affectionate  teacher,  the  sound  lawyer,  the  great  man.  May  Dr.  Theo- 
dore W.  Dwight  live  many  years  for  this  purpose  ;  and  meanwhile 
accept  the  grateful  homage  and  cordial  regard  of  every  student  who  ever 
reported  to  him. 

NEW  YORK,  May  4,  1891. 


CHARLES  W.  DAYTON.  29 


tribute  of  Cbarles  TO.  Dayton. 

DOCTOR  :  "I  feel  thy  conceit  well ;  howbeit  I  cannot  fully  as  yet  assent  unto  it ;  and 
therefore  I  pray  thee  give  me  a  sparing  therein  ;  and  at  a  better  leisure,  I  shall  with  good  will 
shew  thee  farther  of  my  mind  therein. 

"And  now  I  will  ask  thee  another  question." 

"  Doctor  and  Student,"  Chapter  XI. 

When  the  invitation  came  to  write  of  Professor  Dwight,  my  thoughts 
reverted  to  the  scenes  of  nearly  twenty-five  years  ago.  I  pictured  the 
recitation  room  in  Lafayette  Place,  the  dignified  Warden,  whose  kindly 
face  and  gentle  voice  banished  fear  and  conquered  timidity,  whose  learn- 
ing, though  profound,  was  clear  from  the  simplicity  of  its  expression, 
whose  service  to  me,  to  my  classmates,  and  to  the  hundreds  who  have 
graduated  under  him,  was  the  foundation  of  a  high  standard  of  legal 
ethics,  and  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  of  the  law.  These  memories 
kindled  a  desire  to  render  a  tribute,  however  modest,  to  one  whom 
every  alumnus  of  Columbia  College  Law  School  reveres  and  delights  to 
extol. 

To  refresh  my  recollection,  I  glanced  over  my  notes  of  lectures,  my 
briefs  in  moot-court  cases,  my  preparations  for  recitations,  and  I  brought 
to  mind  the  method  of  Professor  Dwight  in  demonstrating  the  strength 
and  the  weakness  of  the  men  in  my  class.  Then,  as  now,  it  was  and  is  a 
matter  of  wonder,  how  he  seemed  to  know  the  peculiarities  and  sensibili- 
ties of  each  student. 

Towards  one  aggressively  confident,  the  professor  was  firm  and 
tolerant ;  towards  another  waveringly  certain,  he  was  encouraging  and 
helpful.  In  discussion  the  master  brought  himself  to  the  level  of  the 
pupil,  ever  preserving  perfect  discipline  and  commanding  respect. 

Always  accessible,  each  student  felt  at  liberty  to  confer  and  consult 
with  him.  His  ready  sympathy  not  infrequently  gave  hope  and  courage 
to  men  struggling  against  great  odds  to  secure  the  benefits  of  the  Law 
School. 

I  remember  his  saying  to  us,  that  the  profession  of  the  law  should  be 
followed  as  a  science,  not  as  a  trade,  and  that  we  should  avoid  the  "arts 
of  chicane  " ;  I  also  remember  going  to  him  shortly  after  I  had  been 
admitted  to  the  Bar,  with  a  question  which  troubled  me,  involving  the 


3o  THE  D  WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 

construction  of  a  will.  He  gave  me  of  his  time  freely,  entered  into 
my  difficulty  with  friendly  zeal,  and  made  suggestions  which  lightened 
the  burden  I  was  bearing.  More  than  ten  years  elapsed  without  our 
meeting,  until  one  day  near  the  court-house  he  passed  and  saluted  me  by 
my  name. 

This  is  my  brief.  The  points  submitted  are  reminiscent.  The  argu- 
ment must  be  made  by  those  who  read. 

If  ten  times  the  space  allotted  were  allowed  me,  I  could  but  amplify 
and  cumulatively  show,  that  as  a  teacher  of  law  Professor  Dwight  has 
ever  been  without  a  contemporary  superior ;  that  as  a  jurist  he  ranks 
with  any  scholar  of  his  day,  that  as  a  man  he  is  endeared  to  all  who  have 
come  within  his  environment. 

On  his  retirement  from  the  chair  he  has  so  long,  so  honorably,  so 
eminently,  and  so  successfully  filled,  he  surely  will  take  with  him  the 
esteem  of  Columbia  College,  the  love  and  gratitude  of  those  who  have 
sat  at  his  feet,  and  the  prayers  of  all,  that  to  him  may  be  given  length 
of  days,  health,  contentment,  and  prosperity,  until  his  distinguished, 
beneficent,  and  useful  life  shall  close. 

NEW  YORK,  April  25,  1891. 


MORRIS  M.  BUDLONG.  31 


tribute  of  flDorris  fl&. 

The  fame  and  popularity  of  Columbia  College  Law  School  have  long 
been  recognized  and  the  credit  assigned  to  its  Warden  Dr.  Theodore  W. 
Dwight. 

His  success  as  an  instructor  of  students  in  law  has  not  only  reflected 
enduring  honors  upon  himself,  but  has  demonstrated  that  the  method 
which  he  has  employed,  if  not  largely  originated,  and  to  which  he  has 
strictly  adhered  for  more  than  a  generation,  is  the  very  best  ever  devised 
for  legal  instruction. 

The  failure  of  a  single  student  of  thirty  successive  annual  classes  to 
discover,  after  engaging  in  actual  practice,  any  defect  or  oversight  in  his 
legal  training,  is  a  sufficient  commentary  upon  the  method  employed,  and 
every  practical  mind  must  regard  the  disposition  to  still  cast  about  for  a 
new  method  of  legal  education,  as  belonging  to  that  Athenian  quality 
of  mind  whose  delight  is  "  to  tell  or  to  hear  some  new  thing." 

No  plan  of  legal  study  could  be  more  natural,  or  more  strongly 
commend  itself,  than  that  of  private  study  of  a  given  number  of  pages 
of  an  approved  text-book,  followed  by  a  daily  critical  examination 
thereon  by  the  instructor  before  the  whole  class,  with  amplifications  by 
the  instructor  of  the  more  obscure  parts,  and  the  supplementing  by  him 
of  any  omissions  from  or  brief  allusions  in  the  text. 

The  hour  spent  by  Dr.  Dwight  in  the  class-room  will  be  recalled  by 
all  of  his  former  pupils  as  a  time  when  many  wrong  inferences  from 
private  reading  were  corrected,  and  errors  in  reasoning  set  right ;  princi- 
ples which  at  home  seemed  arbitrary  and  artificial  became  under  the 
Doctor's  statement  of  their  history,  reasonable,  necessary,  and  just ; 
ancient  statutes,  whose  quaintness  seemed  to  stamp  them  as  entirely 
obsolete  and  of  value  only  as  antique  legal  curiosities,  were  shown  to 
embody  both  wisdom  and  justice,  and  to  constitute  the  very  founda- 
tion upon  which  modern  jurisprudence  rests ;  and  phrases  and  maxims 
from  the  civil  law  which  seemed  out  of  place  in  the  text  were  found  to 
be  epitomes  of  the  law ;  and  have  ever  since  served  as  guide-boards 
through  the  particular  field  where  they  were  met. 


32  THE  D  WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 

To  sum  up  the  recollections  of  those  days  when  Dr.  Dwight  person- 
ally gave  instruction  in  almost  every  branch,  the  aim  was  to  first  implant 
and  firmly  fix  the  root  principle  in  the  mind  ;  then  the  minor  ones  and 
exceptions  were  grouped  about  it,  while  the  details  were  massed  about 
them  in  natural  order,  and  the  whole  subject,  thus  left  as  a  unit  in  the  mind, 
was  easily  retained  and  readily  recalled.  Thus  the  student,  led  along  at 
first  ignorant  as  to  whither  he  was  tending,  found  himself  at  the  end  of 
the  first  term  advancing  along  a  sure  path,  which  brought  him  daily 
assurance  as  he  entered  deeper  into  the  labyrinth  of  his  studies  that 
there  were  no  back  steps  to  take. 

The  superiority  of  Columbia's  method,  as  established  by  Dr.  Dwight, 
over  the  one  by  lectures  chiefly,  is  apparent. 

By  the  latter  the  student  is  introduced,  by  spoken  language  which 
rests  but  for  a  moment  on  the  ear,  to  a  new  species  of  thought,  in  lan- 
guage full  of  new  terms,  and  his  grasp  of  them  is  necessarily  slight ; 
before  he  can  properly  think  over  and  lay  away  in  his  mind  what  he  has 
heard,  the  demands  of  another  day  are  upon  him,  when  new  truths  but 
half  comprehended  are  added  to  those  but  partially  understood,  and 
thus  he  proceeds,  gathering  only  a  general  idea,  and  there  is  left  on  his 
mind  in  the  end  only  a  panoramic  impression  of  what  he  has  heard.  He 
cannot  feel  sure  of  his  position,  and  a  sense  of  growing  strength  and 
self-confidence,  so  indispensable  to  the  future  lawyer,  and  which  can 
spring  alone  from  well  grounded  knowledge,  fails  to  take  root  in  his  mind. 

Equally  unfortunate  is  that  other  method,  which  may  be  styled  a 
study  by  philosophical  comparison  of  adjudicated  cases,  which  calls  upon 
the  student  to  discharge  a  critic's  duties  while  he  is  yet  a  tyro,  and 
requires  original  discrimination  and  judgment  before  he  has  mastered 
the  alphabet  of  his  profession.  A  system  better  calculated  to  in- 
crease the  student's  perplexity  and  to  discourage  his  hopes  could  not 
be  invented. 

It  must,  however,  be  admitted  that  the  best  method  in  the  hands  of 
an  indifferent  instructor  must  result,  at  the  most,  in  only  a  partial  success. 
No  art  or  study  is  difficult  of  mastery,  if  rightly  approached.  The 
difficulty  arises  from  the  master's  failure  himself  to  clearly  perceive  the 
situation,  and  to  start  the  mind  properly  upon  its  course  and  direct  it 
wisely  as  it  advances.  The  mysteries  of  legal  studies,  like  a  woven  fabric, 
readily  unravel,  if  the  right  thread  is  found  and  faithfully  held. 

Dr.  Dwight's  distinguishing  characteristic,  as  a  teacher,  is  of  this 
order. 

His  acquisitions  amount  to  far  more  than  perfect  familiarity  with  the 
principles  of  the  Law.  He  has  mentally  digested  them,  and  absorbed  and 


MORRIS  M.  BUDLONG.  33 

assimilated  them  into  his  mental  and  moral  nature,  so  that  he  gives  them 
out  with  the  diction  and  life  of  original  conceptions,  chaining  the  attention 
of  the  student,  and  engraving  them  upon  his  mind. 

' '  What  you  perceive  aright  you  express  clearly, 
And  the  words  to  say  it  in  come  easily." 

The  Warden  of  Columbia  College  Law  School  is  a  fine  illustration  of 
this  truth. 

The  high  regard  and  personal  affection  with  which  Dr.  Dwight  is  held 
by  every  student  who  has  been  graduated  under  him,  without  a  single 
exception,  is  something  extraordinary.  The  explanation  lies  in  deeper 
grounds  than  the  enthusiasm  of  college  boys  for  a  favorite  tutor. 

The  favorable  judgment  and  affection  of  men  who  realize  that  they 
are  on  the  eve  of  the  battle  of  life,  and  who  have  come  to  sufficiently 
serious  views  to  choose  their  profession,  could  only  be  won  by  a  man  of 
solid  moral  worth,  sound  mental  attainments,  and  true  intellectual  power. 
Besides,  under  Dr.  Dwight  the  student  is  brought  to  feel  the  nobility  of 
the  profession  he  has  chosen.  He  sees  that  the  names  of  those  in  the 
past  who  have  reached  the  most  enviable  places  in  it  are  alike  dis- 
tinguished for  the  high  moral  purpose  and  conduct  which  actuated  them. 
He  feels  ennobled  by  the  goodly  company  he  is  in,  thinks  the  better  of 
himself  for  the  choice  he  has  made,  and  naturally  turns  in  gratitude 
and  affection  to  the  man  who  has  inducted  him  into  so  pleasing  a  pros- 
pect and  fitted  him  to  meet  so  agreeable  a  life-work. 

Now  that  Dr.  Dwight  is  to  retire  from  the  arduous  duties  so  long 
and  so  well  discharged  by  him,  he  will  carry  to  the  quietness  and  rest 
which  he  has  so  justly  earned,  the  best  wishes  of  all  his  former  pupils, 
who  will  always  readily  acknowledge  the  debt  of  gratitude  they  owe 
him. 

NEW  YORK,  April  25,  1891. 


34  THE  D  WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 


{Tribute  of  3ame0  OL 

The  term  of  Professor  Dwight's  professorship  at  Columbia  is  coinci- 
dent with  a  very  considerable  change  in  professional  methods  and  at- 
tainments with  which  he  is  in  no  small  degree  identified.  The  first  half 
of  the  present  century  was  a  formative  period  in  American  Jurispru- 
dence in  its  fundamental  theories  and  principles.  It  was  the  time  of 
Marshall,  Story,  and  Kent.  When  the  survivor  of  these  great  men  died, 
a  widespread  movement  for  reform  in  judicial  procedure  had  begun  to 
make  itself  felt.  The  germinal  force  of  that  movement  was  the  effort 
to  adapt  the  flexible  principles  of  the  existing  body  of  the  law  to  the 
changed  conditions  of  modern  life,  and  to  bring  those  principles  into 
closer  and  readier  application  to  the  requirements  of  a  new  world  of 
business. 

When  Professor  Dwight  assumed  the  chair  which  scarcely  more  than 
a  decade  before  had  been  occupied  by  Chancellor  Kent,  it  was  his  task, 
not  only  to  illustrate  how  the  already  settled  principles  of  law  were  to 
be  applied  under  new  modes  of  procedure,  but  also  to  instruct  his  pupils 
in  their  skilful  and  useful  application  to  the  requirements  of  a  new  era 
of  business.  For  this  task  he  was  singularly  well  qualified.  A  keen, 
logical,  and  analytical  faculty  trained  by  the  most  exacting  study,  enabled 
him  to  state  propositions  of  law  with  nice  precision,  and  to  set  them  in 
their  proper  historical  and  philosophical  relations.  A  never-failing 
memory  drew  apt  illustrations  with  which  to  enforce  them,  with  equal 
facility  from  ancient  and  modern  sources.  Above  all,  a  strong  common- 
sense  and  familiarity  with  affairs  enabled  him  to  give  to  the  discussions 
of  the  class-room  a  life-likeness  and  reality  which  brought  the  matter 
almost  into  the  range  of  actual  experience.  His  point  of  view  was 
always  practice,  and  never  mere  knowledge.  He  dealt  with  real  subjects 
in  a  real  way,  and  with  a  real  interest.  He  was  therefore  pre-eminently 
the  man  adapted  to  help  those  who  meant  to  be  themselves  helpful  in 
their  professional  life  in  the  world  as  they  were  to  find  it.  The  fervid 
oratory  of  the  advocate,  so  needful  in  times  when  personal  rights  and 
liberties  were  in  peril,  had  for  a  time  at  least  given  place  to  professional 
accomplishments  of  a  less  conspicuous  but  not  of  a  less  valuable  character. 


JAMES  L.  BISHOP.  35 


The  faculty  of  marshalling  the  details  of  complicated  business  transac- 
tions, of  drawing  accurate  legal  deduction  on  subjects  of  novel  interest 
and  of  large  importance,  the  wisdom  to  so  advise  as  to  render  litigation 
unnecessary  rather  than  successful,  the  capacity  to  direct  in  the  manage- 
ment of  corporate  and  trust  relations, — these  and  such  duties  had  become 
more  and  more  the  work  of  the  modern  lawyer.  In  these,  and  all  other 
avenues  of  professional  service,  Professor  Dwight's  instructions  were  not 
only  of  priceless  value  to  the  student,  but  of  commanding  consequence 
to  the  community.  The  State  is  deeply  indebted  to  him  for  his  services 
as  a  member  of  the  Constitutional  Convention  of  1867,  and  for  the 
learning  and  ability  with  which  he  filled  the  high  office  of  Judge  of  the 
Commission  of  Appeals.  His  warm-hearted  sympathy  and  humanity 
displayed  itself  at  all  times  both  in  public  and  private  life,  and  all  of 
those  who  came  into  closer  relations  with  him  as  students,  follow  him 
into  his  retirement  with  feelings  not  only  of  admiration,  but  also  of 
veneration  and  affection. 

NEW  YORK,  April  25,  1891. 


36  THE  D  WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 


tribute  of  1R.  Wa^ne  parser. 

It  is  a  pleasant  duty  to  speak  for  the  Class  of  1869,  and  express  their 
feelings  of  regard  and  admiration  for  their  former  master  in  the  law.  To 
join  in  this  testimonial  is  easy.  It  needs  no  effort  to  awake  the  loving 
memories  which  subsist  between  him  and  every  one  who  was  ever 
with  him, — to  recall  what  we  owe  him,  and  to  wish  him  long  life  and 
every  happiness.  But  on  an  occasion  like  this  it  is  due  to  him  and  to  the 
class,  that  we  should  for  the  time  put  by  our  feelings  of  friendship,  and  try 
to  set  down  dispassionately  and  for  others  those  peculiarities  of  his  teach- 
ing that  have  distinguished  him  from  other  men. 

And  first  and  foremost  of  these  characteristics  is  his  devotion  to  the 
work.  He  was  never  a  mere  president  or  professor.  He  did  not  offer  to 
the  law  student  a  variety  of  courses  of  lectures  and  recitations  under 
different  or  indifferent  tutors.  Like  Arnold,  at  Rugby,  and  Taylor,  at 
Andover,  he  was  the  master  of  the  school,  the  doctor  or  teacher  oT  the 
law ;  only  satisfied  with  himself  when  he  was  constantly  with  his  students ; 
devoting  his  days  to  them,  and  his  nights  to  study  ;  disregarding  ease 
and  comfort,  if  only  he  could  meet  each  man  daily  face  to  face  and 
mind  to  mind. 

But  he  differed  from  the  masters  I  have  named.  His  character  as  a 
teacher  can  perhaps  be  best  expressed  by  saying  that  he  is  the  Socratic 
teacher  of  the  day.  His  teaching  was  by  questioning.  If  the  answer 
were  wrong,  it  was  not  corrected  by  his  mere  authority,  but  by  new 
questions  which  drew  the  correction  from  the  man  himself.  It  is  the 
glory  of  the  law  that  it  can  be  made  the  subject  of  such  teaching ;  that  all 
its  branches  are  an  outgrowth  of  living  principles,  rooted  in  common 
sense  and  common  right ;  and  that  the  real  lawyer  is  not  he  who  can  find  a 
case  in  point,  but  he  whose  arguments  are  the  clear  and  necessary  state- 
ment of  legal  principle.  The  true  teacher  is  not  he  who  can  tell  what  is 
said  in  the  books,  but  he  who  can  draw  out  his  students,  and  teach  them 
to  think  as  lawyers. 

This  is  no  easy  task.  There  was  but  one  who  followed  this  method  in 
Greece,  and  in  our  day  I  know  of  no  rival  to  our  old  instructor.  This 
method  of  instruction  requires  peculiar  qualities  of  mind  and  heart — the 


R.    WA  YNE  PARKER.  37 

power,  the  skill,  and  the  patience  to  follow  successively  the  workings  of 
different  minds,  and  to  put  aside  his  own  clear  knowledge  in  order  to 
follow  the  very  stupidities  and  errors  of  his  pupils.  The  teacher  must 
learn  to  think  with  them,  to  be  slow  as  they  are  slow,  even  to  fall  with 
them  in  order  to  teach  them  how  to  rise  again,  and  to  be  blind  with  them 
in  order  to  teach  them  how  to  see.  No  other  man  that  I  have  known  has 
had  such  patience  and  long-suffering  and  love  for  his  pupils  as  that  which 
enabled  him  thus  to  efface  himself  in  the  work  of  teaching. 

Obviously  such  instruction  needs  no  penalties.  Merely  to  listen  is 
education,  not  merely  in  the  law,  but  in  the  lawyer's  art  of  making  the 
law  plain  to  simple  minds, — an  art  that  is  more  necessary  than  great 
learning. 

And  as  the  Greek  teacher  bound  his  disciples  to  him  by  bonds  of 
affection  unknown  in  the  other  schools,  so  we  may  try  the  reality  and 
success  of  such  teaching  now  by  the  lasting  personal  regard  which  we 
feel,  without  exception,  toward  our  former  master  in  the  law. 

NEWARK,  NEW  JERSEY,  April  25, 1891. 


38  THE  D  WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 


tribute  of  William  2>.  ffoulfce. 

president  of  Swartbmotc  College. 

The  thing  which  impressed  me  most  when,  after  graduating  in  the 
Academical  Department  of  Columbia  College  I  became  a  student  in  the 
Law  School,  was  the  complete  inversion  of  the  motives  and  ideas  which 
prevailed  in  our  undergraduate  life.  While  we  were  in  the  Academical 
Department  it  seemed  to  be  the  chief  object  of  every  student  to  accom- 
plish the  utmost  results  in  the  matter  of  marks  and  class  standing  with 
the  least  possible  outlay  of  time  and  labor,  and  without  much  regard  to 
the  advantage  to  be  derived  from  our  studies.  If  we  absorbed  any  con- 
siderable amount  of  knowledge  it  was  oftener  against  our  inclination 
than  in  consequence  of  it.  In  respect  to  college  discipline  it  was  much 
the  same  way.  So  long  as  we  were  not  caught,  any  infringement  of  the 
voluminous  statutes  imposed  upon  us  was  rather  a  merit  than  a  fault. 
An  undiscovered  prank  was  a  title  of  honor  among  our  fellows.  There 
were  professors  whom  we  respected  and  under  whose  skilful  guidance  we 
did  good  work,  but  there  was  still,  in  spite  of  our  personal  friendship,  a 
sort  of  undeveloped  hostility  resulting  from  this  relation.  If  we  could 
get  the  better  of  the  professor  in  any  way  we  felt  a  sort  of  obligation  to 
do  so.  When  we  entered  the  Law  School  these  notions  were  utterly 
changed.  There  was  no  temptation  to  break  any  of  the  rules  because  we 
never  saw  or  heard  of  any  rules  to  be  broken.  There  was  no  disposition 
to  acquire  a  nominal  class  standing  at  the  expense  perhaps  of  actual 
proficiency,  because  there  was  no  such  standing  to  be  acquired.  There 
was  no  temptation  to  cut  morning  prayers,  because  there  were  no  morn- 
ing prayers  which  it  was  our  duty  to  attend.  We  could  come  or  remain 
away  much  as  we  liked ;  the  consequences  were  upon  ourselves.  The 
result  was  that  our  work  was  mostly  spontaneous.  It  was  the  product  of 
our  individual  interests  and  desires,  instead  of  being  "  prescribed  by  any 
supreme  power  "  in  our  little  state.  It  was  an  illustration  of  the  great 
fact,  so  dear  to  every  American,  that  individual  liberty  is  a  more  effective 
mainspring  of  action  than  any  kind  of  paternalism. 

This  came  about  no  doubt  in  part  from  our  increasing  years.  We 
were  putting  away  the  things  of  childhood.  But  it  came  about  in  a  much 


WILLIAM  D.  FOULKE.  39 

greater  degree  from  the  initiative  which  was  set  by  the  conduct  of  him 
whom  I  have  always  regarded  as  pre-eminent  among  instructors,  Dr. 
Theodore  W.  Dwight.  There  was  not  a  man  of  us  whom  he  did 
not  capture  completely.  There  was  certainly  no  one  in  our  class  upon 
whom  Dr.  Dwight  could  not  count,  as  a  respectful  student  and  as  an 
enthusiastic  and  devoted  friend.  I  have  never  seen  his  equal  in  the 
power,  not  only  of  eliciting  the  best  work  from  the  intellectual  material 
before  him,  but  in  developing  that  highest  of  all  moral  qualities  for 
the  accomplishment  of  great  results — enthusiasm.  His  explanations  of 
the  law  were  so  simple  that  a  child  could  understand  them.  The  prin- 
ciples underlying  this  great  science  were  so  plainly  fixed  in  our  memories 
that  they  remain  there  immutably  through  life. 

He  showed  us  the  thread  of   logic  and  sound  doctrine   by   which 
to  explore  safely 

"  The  lawless  science  of  our  law, 
That  codeless  myriad  of  a  precedent," 

amid  the  labyrinths  of  which  a  man  without  a  guide  is  so  easily  bewil- 
dered and  lost.  But  most  of  all  we  remember  at  this  time,  not  the  clear 
and  commanding  intellect  which  patiently  unravelled  for  us  these  com- 
plicated truths,  but  the  benevolent  face,  the  kind  voice  and  sympathetic 
heart  of  a  professor  who  rejoiced  in  all  our  small  successes,  and  to  whom 
we  could  at  all  times  turn  for  friendly  counsel. 

RICHMOND,  IND.,  April  10,  1891. 


40  THE  D WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 


to 


When  the  newspapers  several  months  ago,  brought  the  report  that 
Professor  Dwight  had  sent  in  his  resignation  as  warden  and  professor  of 
the  Law  School  of  Columbia  College,  because  of  certain  differences  between 
him  and  the  trustees  of  the  College  in  respect  to  the  future  scope  and 
management  of  the  school,  this  information  was  received  with  surprise  by 
•the  public,  and  by  the  graduates  of  the  school  throughout  the  country 
with  a  feeling  of  deep  concern  and  sincere  regret,  mingled  with  the  hope 
that  such  report  might  not  be  true. 

The  cause  of  this  regret  was  not  abstract,  but  personal,  for  every 
student  of  the  Law  School  carried  away  with  him  an  earnest  and  most 
profound  attachment  and  esteem  for  Dr.  Dwight.  They  had  sat  "  not 
at  his  feet  "  after  the  manner  of  the  ancients,  but  they  sat  literally  on  the 
same  level  with  him,  for  this  was  his  peculiar  tact,  that  he  lifted  all  his 
students  up  to  his  high  plane.  Every  member  of  the  Law  School  had  in 
Professor  Dwight  not  alone  a  most  inimitable  instructor  but  a  friend  and 
adviser.  The  pleasant  relations  between  student  and  professor  began 
at  the  beginning  of  every  academic  year,  for  Professor  Dwight  had  the 
remarkable  personality  faculty  of  immediately  learning  his  name,  and 
ever  afterwards  remembering  it  correctly.  I  will  not  attempt  to  describe 
the  many  extraordinary  qualities  that  Professor  Dwight  combines,  and 
which  have  made  him  the  great  professor  that  he  is.  In  brief,  I  would 
say  that  he  fulfilled  to  the  fullest  extent  the  requisites  as  laid  down  by  Dr. 
Watts  :  "  Instructors  should  not  only  be  skilful  in  those  sciences  which 
they  teach,  but  have  skill  in  the  method  of  teaching  and  patience  in  the 
practice." 

It  will  not  be  denied  that  the  law  is  as  intricate,  complex  and  difficult 
as  any  of  the  sciences.  It  abounds  in  fine  distinctions  and  differentia- 
tions, and  requires  a  logic  circumscribed  often  by  apparently  contradic- 
tory precedents  to  discover  the  underlying  principles  around  which  these 
precedents  are  grouped,  and  by  which  they  are  often  overlapped  as  the 
hanging  branches  overshadow  the  small  clear  stream  that  meanders  un- 
derneath. 

With  wonderful  clearness  and  facility  the  Professor  would  explain  to 


HON.  OSCAR  S.  STRAUS.  41 

the  unskilled  minds  of  the  students  the  principles  that  govern  a  specified 
line  of  decision,  and  teach  them  to  sift  the  facts  by  the  light  of  the  law, 
and  to  thread  their  way  from  decision  to  precedent  and  from  precedent 
to  principles. 

Professor  Dwight  has  contributed  more  largely  towards  lifting  the 
study  of  the  law  from  chaos  to  a  systematic  method  than  any  other 
instructor  of  our  time.  By  reason  of  his  great  learning  in  the  law,  and 
his  ability  and  skill  as  an  instructor,  Columbia  Law  School  has  justly  won 
for  itself  the  first  rank  among  the  schools  of  that  class  in  the  country. 
There  are  several  thousand  lawyers  dispersed  all  over  the  country  who 
feel  a  deep  sense  of  affection  and  gratitude  to  Professor  Dwight  for  the 
help  he  has  given  them  in  equipping  them  for  the  arduous  duties  of  their 
profession,  men  who  are  an  honor  to  their  profession  and  reflect  credit 
upon  the  name  of  Columbia.  This  fact  is  doubtless  well  known  to  the 
Trustees  of  the  College,  who,  I  trust,  have  no  lack  of  appreciation  for  the 
service  that  Professor  Dwight  has  rendered  to  the  institution,  by  whose 
efforts  mainly  the  school  has  been  built  up  from  a  small  insignificant 
class,  to  one  of  the  largest  and  best  known  of  the  adjunct  schools,  so  that 
with  the  prestige  it  has  acquired  and  its  large  number  of  students  it  will 
be  comparatively  easy  to  extend  its  scope  and  enlarge  its  curriculum. 

The  graduates  of  the  school  are  doubtless  pleased  that  an  advancing 
and  progressive  step  is  contemplated.  This  is  a  move  in  the  right  direc- 
tion and  in  keeping  with  the  progress  and  general  improvement  that  has 
been  so  vigorously  inaugurated  under  the  new  regime  of  the  College.  A 
thorough  course  of  instruction  in  law,  municipal  and  international,  its  phil- 
osophy and  history,  as  distinguished  from  a  preparation  for  the  practice  of 
the  law,  is  of  the  highest  use  as  branches  of  general  education  in  a  country 
such  as  ours,  where  there  is  need  for  many  men  systematically  trained  for 
statecraft  and  legislative  duties.  I  am  confident  that  the  graduates  of  the 
Law  School  would  have  felt  better  contented  if  this  enlargement  of  the 
scope  of  the  school  could  have  been  carried  forward  under  the  warden- 
ship  of  Professor  Dwight,  whose  eminent  qualifications  as  an  instructor 
would  serve  as  an  inestimable  object  lesson  to  such  associate  professors 
and  instructors  as  may  be  called  to  the  school  to  undertake  the  work 
which  has  been  by  him  so  well  begun  and  for  so  many  years  continued 
with  such  distinguished  and  extraordinary  success. 

Professor  Dwight  can  be  assured  that  he  carries  with  him  to  his  retire- 
ment from  his  arduous  duties  and  long  years  of  distinguished  services 
the  universal  esteem  and  highest  regard  of  his  many  students  throughout 
the  land,  who  will  ever  recognize  a  deep  debt  of  gratitude  to  their  great 
and  wise  professor. 

NEW  YORK,  April  30,  1891. 


42  THE  D  WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 


{Tribute  of  3ubge  Militant  1b.  BeMitt 

Supreme  Court  of  Montana. 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  have  the  opportunity  to  add  my  tribute  to  the 
thousands  which  are  rendered  to  Dr.  Dwight  upon  his  retirement  from 
his  active  duties  at  Columbia  College  Law  School. 

It  has  not  been  my  privilege  to  even  meet  Dr.  Dwight  since, 
shortly  after  being  graduated,  I  had  his  kindly  God-speed  in  starting 
for  a  country  then  as  distant  from  New  York  as  is  now  the  Congo  Free 
State,  a  country  which,  even  the  other  day,  was  criticised  in  Boston  as  a 
remote  mining  camp  unfit  to  be  a  State. 

But,  in  a  somewhat  varied  experience  of  a  dozen  years,  in  seeing  a 
noble  commonwealth  grow  from  a  small  group  of  mining  communities, 
and  during  a  slight  participation  in  the  making  of  a  State,  no  influence 
has  been  more  potent  or  present  in  my  life  than  that  of  the  two  years' 
instruction  of  Dr.  Dwight. 

My  memory  runs  toward  him  in  three  channels.  The  first  is  that 
through  which  go  the  thoughts  of  all  his  students,  his  magnificent 
system  of  instruction.  It  meets  a  response  with  his  pupils  to  say  that 
in  his  instruction  he  laid  a  foundation  of  principles  upon,  which  he  after- 
wards developed  to  the  student  the  superstructure  of  cases  which  has 
been  built  upon  them.  The  terse  and  expressive  condensations,  which 
we  call  maxims,  and  the  underlying  principles  of  the  law,  he  planted  in 
the  student's  mind  and  tilled  with  daily  applications  to  varying  facts, 
until  they  took  a  root  as  lasting  as  life  itself. 

The  writer  of  this  letter  happens  to  have  had  his  lot  cast  where  a 
new  common  law  upon  two  subjects  has,  within  a  few  years,  been  devel- 
oped— that  is  the  Western  American  law  of  mines  and  water  rights. 
This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  or  even  define  the  radical  departures 
from  the  ancient  law  of  real  estate  which  have  been  taken  in  the  matter 
of  mining  and  the  use  of  water  in  the  Western  States.  They  are 
departures  required  by  geological  and  climatic  facts,  and  by  the  all- 
powerful  necessities  of  a  people — a  people  who,  under  their  wagon  bows, 
along  with  their  rifles  and  picks  and  shovels,  brought  their  fathers'  com- 
mon law,  the  everlasting  principles  of  which  they  adapted  to  a  new 


JUDGE  WILLIAM  H.  DEWITT.  43 

environment — principles  which  Dr.  Dwight  made  household  words  to 
those  who  sat  under  his  instruction.  There  is  one  of  his  students,  of  the 
class  of  1878,  to  whom,  in  the  endeavor  to  solve  the  ever-recurring  legal 
problems,  often  comes  a  thought,  with  the  accompaniment  of  "as 
Dwight  used  to  say." 

Another  of  my  happiest  recollections  of  that  great  teacher  is  his  high 
moral  view  of  the  profession.  Banter  upon  lawyers'  lack  of  integrity  is 
common  upon  the  lips  of  laymen.  It  is  a  stock  joke  of  the  stage.  It  is 
good-naturedly  tolerated  in  the  profession.  With  Dr.  Dwight  it  was 
wholly  absent.  I  do  not  remember  his  ever  indulging  in  humor,  the 
subject  of  which  was  the  sometimes  alleged  moral  weakness  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  profession.  He  taught  us  not  only  law,  but  law  morals.  He 
impressed  us  with  a  belief  that  the  law  was  the  most  honorable  of  all 
callings  in  life,  a  belief  which  the  vicissitudes  of  experience  have  not 
shaken  from  the  soil  in  which  he  planted  it. 

There  is  one  other  memory  of  Dr.  Dwight's  history  in  the  law  school 
which  is  near  to  the  hearts  of  many  of  his  students,  and  of  which  I,  in 
common  with  others,  can  speak  with  grateful  remembrance.  Many  of 
us  relied  upon  tutoring  and  coaching  law-school  students,  conditioned 
in  Latin,  in  order  to  supply  certain  sumptuary  demands  of  nature  and 
an  artificial  civilization.  Dr.  Dwight  did  more  than  give  us  letters  of 
recommendation.  He  found  us  work,  and  took  pleasure  in  doing  it. 
Hundreds  of  his  students  owe  to  his  interest  and  efforts  the  fact  that 
they  found  the  means  by  which  they  were  enabled  to  prosecute  their 
studies. 

I  can  look  back  to  many  other  instructors  whom  I  admired  and 
respected,  but  Dr.  Dwight  occupies  the  higher  place  of  teacher  and 
friend. 

He  has  built  himself  a  monument  in  the  hearts  of  his  pupils.  Its 
foundation  rises  from  every  State  in  the  Union.  May  it  be  many  year? 
before  its  cap-piece  is  placed,  and  the  end  shall  crown  the  work. 

HELENA,  MONTANA,  April  22,  1891. 


44  THE  D WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 


{Tribute  of  William  flX  jfowler. 

fresfoent  Hew  .t'orf:,  Ontario,  an&  tClcstcrn  1rtailroat>. 

It  is  said  of  Judge  Joseph  Story  "  that  his  familiar  bearing  toward 
'  the  boys  ' — as  he  called  the  students, — his  frankness,  bubbling  humor, 
merry  and  contagious  laugh,  and  inexhaustible  fund  of  incident  and 
anecdote,  with  which  he  gave  piquancy  and  zest  to  the  driest  themes, 
won  for  him  the  love  of  his  pupils,  whose  professional  careers,  after  they 
left  the  Harvard  Law  School,  he  watched  with  fatherly  interest." 

How  truly  these  words  apply  to  the  work  of  Professor  Dwight,  those 
who  have  been  "  his  boys  "  can  bear  witness. 

The  daily  sessions  at  Columbia  Law  School  have  been  for  many 
years  not  only  hours  of  profit  but  hours  of  pleasure.  Under  Professor 
Dwight,  there  were  no  dry  themes,  and,  after  the  daily  lecture,  what  a 
pleasure  it  always  was  to  come  in  familiar  contact  with  one  who,  beyond 
doubt  or  question,  was  the  earnest  and  devoted  friend  of  each  and  every 
man  whose  good  fortune  it  was  to  attend  those  sessions.  Nor  did  his 
fatherly  interest  end  at  the  class-room  door.  Each  young  man,  in  starting 
out,  with  the  Law  School  behind  him,  the  world  before  him,  and  his 
diploma  in  his  pocket,  felt  that  he  was  still  one  of  Professor  Dwight's 
"  boys,"  and  that  his  record  had  a  place  somewhere  "  in  the  heart  of  a 
friend." 

A  brilliant  chapter  in  the  history  of  Columbia  Law  School  is  about 
to  close.  The  man  who  made  it  successful  and  renowned  is  to  transfer 
its  cares  and  responsibilities — which,  to  him,  have  been  a  sacred  trust — 
to  other  able,  but  younger,  men. 

May  we  not,  with  propriety,  at  this  time,  quote  Judge  Story's  own 
words,  and  confess  that  "  we  dwell  with  pleasure  upon  the  entirety  of 
a  life  adorned  by  consistent  principles  and  filled  up  in  the  discharge  of 
virtuous  duty,  where  there  is  nothing  to  regret  and  nothing  to  conceal  ; 
no  friendships  broken ;  no  confidence  betrayed ;  no  timid  surrenders  to 
popular  clamor ;  no  eager  reaches  for  popular  favor.  May  the  period  be 
yet  far  distant  when  praise  shall  speak  out,  with  that  fulness  of  utterance 
which  belongs  to  the  sanctity  of  the  grave." 

Professor  Dwight  will  carry  with  him,  in  retiring,  the  .esteem  and 
affection  of  hundreds  of  men,  each  of  whom  is  a  better,  wiser  man  for 
having  been  one  of  "  his  boys." 

NEW  YORK,  April  8,  1891. 


WILLIAM  B.  HORNBLO  WER.  45 


{Tribute  of  Militant  B.  Ibornblower. 

I  cannot  forego  the  pleasure  of  contributing  my  share  towards  a  testi- 
monial to  Professor  Dwight,  upon  his  retirement  from  active  service  in 
connection  with  Columbia  Law  School. 

Whatever  may  be  said  as  to  the  comparative  merits  of  various  systems 
of  instruction  as  pursued  in  the  different  law  schools  of  the  country, 
and  whatever  theoretical  advantages  one  system  may  have  over  another, 
I  think  it  will  be  generally  conceded  that  Professor  Dwight  has  achieved 
a  pre-eminence  among  the  legal  instructors  of  his  time  in  attaining  the 
practical  result  of  imparting  to  his  students  a  clear,  coherent,  and  logical 
view  of  the  law  of  the  land  as  the  student  is  called  upon  to  deal  with  it 
in  the  practical  affairs  of  life.  No  man  with  average  ability  can  have 
graduated  from  Columbia  Law  School  under  Professor  Dwight's  tuition 
without  being  a  reasonably  well-equipped  lawyer  for  the  work  that  he 
has  before  him.  The  luminous  exposition  of  legal  principles,  the  constant 
and  patient  reiteration  of  those  principles,  the  copious  fund  of  illustra- 
tion showing  the  application  of  the  principles  to  legal  controversies, 
which  have  characterized  Professor  Dwight's  instruction,  have  necessarily 
furnished  to  the  student  who  has  carefully  followed  the  Professor's 
course  with  a  fund  of  information  which  cannot  fail  to  have  made  him  a 
ready  and  accurate  lawyer  at  the  very  outset  of  his  career.  If  himself 
endowed  with  a  love  of  learning  for  its  own  sake,  and  a  fondness  for 
research,  he  has  received  a  stimulus  which  will  enable  him  during  his 
professional  life  to  add  to  his  fund  of  information  by  historical  study  of 
the  sources  of  the  law  ;  he  has  a  nucleus  of  legal  principles,  around  which 
he  can  gather  and  assort  in  orderly  arrangement  all  the  results  of  his 
individual  investigation.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  as  happens  with  most 
lawyers,  he  is  thrown  at  once  into  the  practical  discussion  and  conduct 
of  legal  controversies  growing  out  of  the  daily  affairs  of  life,  he  is  able 
to  bring  to  bear  upon  those  controversies  the  principles  and  rules  which 
during  his  Law  School  course  have  been  so  thoroughly  and  constantly 
enforced  upon  his  mind.  I  do  not  mean  to  be  understood  as  intimating 
that  Professor  Dwight  has  ignored  the  historical  study  of  the  law.  On 
the  contrary,  so  far  as  can  be  done  in  the  time  allotted,  I  believe  he  has 


46  THE  D  WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 

given  a  sufficient  rJsum/  of  the  history  of  legal  principles  to  throw  light 
upon  their  real  meaning  as  finally  evolved  and  developed ;  but  the 
emphasis  has  been  placed  by  him  in  his  teaching  rather  upon  the  results 
than  upon  the  process  by  which  the  result  is  reached.  Bracton,  and 
Shepherd's  Touchstone,  and  Coke  upon  Littleton,  and  the  Year  Books 
have  been  by  no  means  overlooked  by  Professor  Dwight  in  his  instruc- 
tion, but  he  has  recognized  the  fact  that  the  average  student  has  neither 
the  time  nor  the  disposition  for  curious  historical  research,  and  if  he  be 
above  the  average,  and  has  the  time  or  the  disposition,  he  will  for  himself 
pursue  the  lines  of  investigation  to  which  his  tastes  direct  him.  Pro- 
fessor Dwight  has,  if  I  mistake  not,  proceeded  rather  upon  the  idea  that 
it  is  more  important  for  the  legal  practitioner,  as  for  the  medical  prac- 
titioner, to  know  how  to  deal  with  actual  cases  and  to  apply  the  settled 
rules  of  his  science,  than  to  know  what  were  the  rules  a  hundred  or  two 
hundred  or  five  hundred  years  ago.  I  do  not  mean  by  this  to  be  under- 
stood as  belittling  historical  research,  or  what  may  be  called  the  more 
theoretical  mode  of  studying  the  science  of  jurisprudence.  Each  system 
has  its  advantages,  but  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  for  the  average  man 
Professor  Dwight's  system  is  the  better.  At  any  rate,  in  my  own  case,  I 
cheerfully  bear  testimony  to  the  fact  that  I  received  under  Professor 
Dwight's  instruction  such  a  thorough  and  comprehensive  and  lucid 
exposition  of  the  principles  which  I  have  since  been  called  upon  to  prac- 
tically apply,  that  I  would  not  exchange  it  for  any  other  instruction 
which  I  might  have  received  under  some  other  theory  or  plan. 

Professor  Dwight's  personal  qualities  have  aided  him  much  in  dealing 
with  the  minds  of  the  young  men  brought  before  him.  His  imperturba- 
ble good-nature,  his  gentleness  and  kindness  of  manner,  his  indulgence 
for  the  errors  and  mistakes  and  even  the  heedlessness  and  indifference  of 
his  students,  and  his  patient  persistence  in  re-explaining  and  re-enforcing 
what  many  another  man  would  think  had  already  been  sufficiently 
explained  and  enforced,  have  stimulated  many  a  mind  which  otherwise 
would  have  given  up  in  despair.  No  student,  I  venture  to  say,  ever  felt 
rebuffed  or  snubbed  by  Professor  Dwight,  so  long  as  he  was  seeking  for 
light,  however  irritating  and  exasperating  might  have  been  his  apparent 
slowness  of  apprehension  or  forgetfulness  of  principles  frequently  brought 
to  his  attention. 

It  is  a  matter  of  great  regret  to  all  the  graduates  of  Columbia  Law 
School  that  Professor  Dwight  is  about  to  cease  from  active  work  in  that 
institution.  We  trust  that  his  successors  will  be  worthy  of  him  in  his 
qualities  of  mind  and  heart. 

NEW  YORK,  April  25,  1891. 


HON.  PERRY  B  ELMO  NT.  47 


tribute  of  1bon.  pern?  Belmont 


to  Spain. 
Cbairman  of  Committee  of  Ixmse  of  IRepresentativea  on  foreign  IRctations. 

It  was  Professor  Dwight's  attractive  personality  that  drew  me  — 
although  a  graduate  of  Harvard  —  to  the  Columbia  Law  School.  It  was 
he  who  taught  me,  as  he  did  the  graduates  of  other  universities  who  have 
come  to  his  classes,  to  feel  a  deep  and  lasting  interest  in  the  welfare  and 
success  of  Columbia  —  while,  of  course,  the  more  distant  alma  mater 
always  claims  our  affectionate  loyalty.  Professor  Dwight  for  a  longtime 
WAS  the  Columbia  Law  School.  It  hardly  existed  when  he  became  con- 
nected with  the  College  in  1858  —  a  third  of  a  century  ago.  Now  it  num- 
bers over  six  hundred  members,  and  is,  with  one  exception,  the  largest 
institution  of  its  kind  in  the  country.  The  State  University  of  Michigan 
is  said  to  have  more  law  students,  but  the  conditions  there  are  very 
different.  The  State  bears  a  large  proportion  of  the  cost  of  instruction, 
and  the  admission  fees  are  merely  nominal  ;  but,  in  the  case  of  the 
Columbia  Law  School,  many  of  the  graduates  have  had  to  observe  the 
strictest  rules  of  self-denial,  industry,  and  thrift  to  avail  themselves  of 
its  benefits. 

To  his  most  able  and  interesting  method  of  instruction  he  added  the 
happy  gift  of  so  identifying  himself  with  the  students  who  came  under  his 
charge,  and  thus  assured  them  that  his  personal  interest  in  their  careers 
would  extend  beyond  the  Law  School  itself.  They  saw  the  kindly  con- 
cern he  took  in  the  progress  of  those  who  had  preceded  them,  and  they 
instinctively  felt  that  the  same  generous  solicitude  would  follow  them 
also  in  after  life.  There  could  be  no  stronger  incentive  to  earnest  effort, 
and  not  a  small  part  of  the  success  which  has  attended  Professor 
Dwight's  labors  in  the  College  has  been  due  to  this  sentiment.  This 
is  only  one  of  the  many  reasons  which  caused  the  announcement  of  his 
retirement  from  active  connection  with  Columbia  College  to  be  received 
with  such  deep  regret  by  every  student  who  has  had  the  pleasure  and 
the  profit  of  his  instruction  ;  and  it  is  a  pleasing  duty  to  give  expression 
to  so  sincere  a  feeling,  however  inadequate  these  few  words  may  be. 


48  THE  D  WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 


tribute  of  Bwi$bt  Erven  3one$. 

The  personality  of  a  teacher  is  a  powerful  factor  quietly  at  work  to 
aid  or  hinder  his  teaching.  In  no  other  profession  can  an  inspiring  man 
accomplish  better  results.  His  enthusiasm  awakens  the  dormant  powers 
of  the  pupil,  arouses  his  ambition,  and  spurs  him  on  to  personal  achieve- 
ment. And  as  each  year  brings  under  his  influence  many  ripening  minds, 
he  is  ever  securing  new  and  rich  opportunities.  Perhaps  no  better 
example  of  the  far-reaching  effects  that  may  come  from  this  personal 
power  can  be  found  than  is  illustrated  by  the  affectionate  regard  with 
which  the  law  graduates  of  Columbia  College  remember  Professor  Theo- 
dore W.  Dwight.  In  him  pre-eminently,  there  was  the  power  of  first 
gaining  the  interest  and  then  absorbing  the  attention  of  the  pupil.  And 
thus  it  was,  he  speedily  acquired  a  magnetic  influence  over  all  and 
obtained  his  great  popularity.  His  stature,  his  scholarly  appearance,  his 
years,  his  courtly  and  frank  carriage,  made  him  an  object  of  admiration  to 
his  students,  and  they  could  not  but  appreciate  his  profound  ability,  his 
keen  wit,  his  unusual  patience,  and  his  unerring  fairness.  But,  beyond 
these,  it  was  his  cheerful  and  earnest  interest  in  the  affairs  of  the  lecture 
room, — in  fact,  his  genuine  enthusiasm  in  his  work, — that  controlled 
their  wills  and  that  gave  him  his  great  force  with  them.  This  enthusi- 
astic interest  in  his  calling,  so  freely  exhibited  by  Professor  Dwight,  was 
the  more  admirable  because  it  is  nowadays  seldom  found  in  men  of  his 
parts  and  in  his  profession.  Even  instructors  of  wide  reputation  are  too 
apt  to  leave  upon  their  students  an  impression  of  the  utter  weariness  of 
learning;  and  lawyers  of  mature  age  too  frequently  are  given  over  to  a 
critical  condition  of  mind  that  precludes  all  enthusiastic  display.  But 
in  Professor  Dwight's  case,  the  renowned  instructor  always  retained  his 
original  fire,  and  the  able  lawyer  never  became  too  acute  or  profound  to 
show  his  ardent  interest  in  the  affairs  of  the  moment.  As  a  result  of 
this,  while  students  were  with  him  they  were  eager  to  hear  him  elucidate 
legal  questions ;  and  now  several  thousand  lawyers  look  back  upon  him 
as  the  most  remarkable  instructor  they  have  ever  known,  and  carry  with 
them  a  remembrance  of  him  which  is  a  constant  incentive  to  better 
work. 

But  Professor  Dwight  has  not  held  the  regard  of  his  students  only  by 
his  enthusiastic  interest  in  his  work.  The  clearness  and  brilliancy  of  his 
mind  opened  to  them  the  justice,  the  accuracy,  and  the  pliability  of  legal 


D  WIGHT  AR  VEN  JONES.  49 

principles.  He  pictured  the  law  as  a  just  and  equitable  science,  and 
based  its  teachings  upon  principles  of  right  and  justice.  He  brought  out 
with  wonderful  acumen  the  nicety  of  distinction  that  abounds  in  it,  and 
in  this  displayed  striking  power,  for  these  distinctions  constitute  to  a  great 
degree  the  fascination  of  the  study  of  law,  as  they  require  the  closest 
reasoning  and  the  keenest  attention  on  the  part  of  the  student,  and 
always  offer  an  opportunity  for  individual  thought.  To  Professor  Dwight 
this  art  of  just  discrimination  seemed  natural  and  simple ;  and  he  was 
ever  delighted  to  trace  the  logical  development  of  some  nice  distinction 
from  the  well-known  principle  underlying  it.  He  thus  impressed  one 
with  the  reasonableness  of  the  law,  deprived  it  of  its  mysteries 
and  technical  absurdities  and  brought  all  its  doctrines  to  the  test  of 
right.  Abstruse  questions  of  law  in  his  hands  resolved  themselves  into 
clear  propositions  of  fairness,  and  passages  in  text-books  that  seemed  to 
have  been  written  for  the  purpose  of  terrorizing  students,  became 
strangely  simple  when  illustrated  by  him.  This  power  of  a  master  mind 
could  not  but  impress  his  pupils.  They  looked  up  to  him  then  as  they 
look  back  upon  him  now,  as  a  model  scholar  and  teacher,  one  who  was 
both  learned  and  lucid,  both  profound  and  simple. 

While  the  class  of  1877 — the  largest  ever  graduated — was  under  his 
instruction,  the  amount  of  college  work  done  by  Professor  Dwight  was 
astounding,  especially  when  other  work  done  by  him  is  considered.  At 
that  time,  each  division  of  each  class  thought  itself  ill  used  if  he  did  not 
conduct  every  recitation.  It  would  be  easy,  if  space  allowed,  to  give  the 
daily  duties  that  he  undertook ;  but  as  the  memories  of  all  those  who 
attended  the  Law  School  at  this  time  will  recall  his  constant  presence, 
there  is  no  need  to  do  this.  His  unremitting  attendance  in  the  lecture 
room  must  have  put  a  most  severe  test  upon  his  patience  and  energy ; 
but  it  was  just  at  this  time  that  he  displayed  fully  his  wonderful  strength. 
All  who  then  attended  his  recitations  and  lectures  will  remember  the 
crowds  that  filled  every  available  spot  in  the  old  lecture  room,  the 
students  even  sitting  about  on  the  edge  of  the  Professor's  platform. 
And  this  was  the  daily  experience.  The  instance  simply  illustrates  the 
desire  that  then  existed  to  hear  him  expound  the  lesson  of  the  day — a 
desire  which  has  continued  undiminished  to  the  present  time.  And  now, 
as  Professor  Dwight  retires  from  active  work  in  the  Law  School  he  has 
made  famous,  I  am  sure  it  is  the  hope  of  a  host  of  his  old  pupils,  that  he 
may  realize  how  widely  he  has  impressed  his  powerful  personal  influence 
upon  them,  how  greatly  he  has  elevated  the  study  of  the  law  both  for 
them  and  for  all  scholars,  and  how  successfully  he  has  set  before  them  a 
living  example  of  a  calm,  a  wise,  and  a  just  man. 

NEW  YORK,  April  24, 1891. 


5o  THE  D WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 


tribute  of  Etbelbert  2).  Marfielfc. 

of  Xafagette  College. 


I  suppose  that  it  is  the  common  sentiment  of  my  contemporaries  in 
the  Law  School  that  Professor  Dwight  was  the  law  school.  Certainly  it 
was  far  truer  of  him  than  Louis  le  Grand's  favorite  saying,  "  L'e"tat  c'est 
moi,"  was  true  of  him.  His  personality  pervaded  it,  his  ideas  dominated 
it,  his  will  guided  it  ;  above  all,  love  for  him  controlled  it.  Professor 
Chase,  whom  we  admired  and  respected,  was  so  completely  a  result  of 
Professor  Dwight's  methods  that  we  scarcely  thought  to  distinguish  him 
and  his  teaching  from  the  elder  and,  for  the  time,  dominant  influence. 

I  came  to  Columbia,  a  Princeton  graduate,  from  a  period  of  special 
study  in  the  University  of  Oxford,  and  in  Germany,  where  I  had  laid  a 
foundation  in  Constitutional  History  and  Roman  Law.  My  mind  had 
been  thoroughly  liberalized  and  I  was  dead  in  earnest.  It  was,  there- 
fore, I  think,  a  fair  tribute  to  Professor  Dwight  as  a  teacher  that  I  was 
entirely  captivated,  and  I  say,  without  hesitation  or  reserve,  that  he  was, 
mejudice,  the  best  instructor  I  ever  knew.  As  a  teacher  he  compelled 
the  students  to  work,  he  imparted  information  with  ease  and  accuracy, 
and  he  stirred  up  those  of  scholarly  instincts  to  independent  investiga- 
tion. In  all  his  dealings  with  the  students  he  had  the  happiest  way  of 
removing  misconceptions,  and  opening  up  by  a  fine,  incisive,  critical 
method  a  way  through  the  most  tangled  maze  of  conflicting  decisions. 
In  this  there  was  none  of  that  pyrotechnic  display  so  common  in  brilliant 
men  who  are  inferior  teachers.  It  was  simple  in  method,  outspoken  in 
manner,  and  bred  a  confidence  in  the  students  which  has  seemed  to  me 
to  be  the  most  marked  characteristic  of  Columbia  men  at  the  bar.  In  a 
word,  Professor  Dwight  made  us  all  understand  that  the  English  Law 
was  a  SYSTEM,  and  that  induction  was  not  the  sole  logical  method  to  be 
employed  in  its  study  or  practice. 

The  school  was  meant  to  make  lawyers,  and  it  made  them  well. 
Professor  Dwight  taught  practical  law  with  a  practical  end  to  practical 
young  men.  The  end  was  ever  in  view,  and  the  means  were  perfectly 
adapted  to  it.  But  in  those  who  were  fitted  for  more  philosophical 
studies  in  connection  with  the  law  he  awoke  a  love  of  scholarly  treatment 


E  2  'HELBER  T  D.   WARFIELD.  5 1 

and  pursuit  which  was  a  true  example  of  the  power  of  "  influence  "  in 
teaching.  I  tried  the  School  of  Political  Science,  but  had  done  the  work 
of  the  courses  offered  there  elsewhere,  and  pursued  an  independent 
course  of  research,  in  which  the  Warden  was  ever  interested  and  ready 
to  advise.  In  every  relation,  in  public  and  private,  there  was  the  same 
unvarying  genial,  kindly,  friendly  way,  often  warming  into  humor,  some- 
times chilling  into  rebuke ;  but  if  there  was  anything  in  his  class-room 
manner  open  to  criticism,  it  was  that  he  was  too  indulgent  to  that  class 
of  men  who  have  neither  self-respect  enough  to  study  themselves,  nor 
to  abstain  from  being  a  check  and  a  nuisance  to  those  who  do  study. 
These  men  often  imposed  on  his  good  nature,  and  if  any  proof  of  its 
genuineness  was  required,  they  gave  him  "  the  concrete  case  on  which  to 
raise  the  issue." 

I  went  to  Columbia  because  I  believed  in  the  theory  of  the  school, 
so  my  critical  judgment  has  not  been  altered,  though  possibly  strength- 
ened, through  admiration  of  the  man  who  may  be  said  to  embody  that 
theory.  It  is  a  singularly  complete  gratification  to  recall  my  law  school 
days,  since  in  theory  and  in  personnel  I  was  so  entirely  led  by  the  right 
path  to  the  desired  goal.  In  the  few  years  I  passed  at  the  bar,  and  have 
since  passed  as  an  instructor  in  Jurisprudence  and  the  outlines  of  English 
and  Roman  Law,  I  have  had  nothing  to  regret  in  my  training,  and  I  shall 
hope  that  my  alma  mater  shall  at  last  find  a  man  imbued  with  the  ideas 
and  methods  so  long  so  successful  in  Columbia.  For  our  beloved  and 
honored  friend  and  preceptor  I  trust  there  may  be  a  long  and  honorable 
repose  in  the  midst  of  those  for  whom  he  has  so  faithfully  labored. 

MIAMI  UNIVERSITY,  April  17,  1891. 


52  THE  D  WIGHT  TRIBUTE. 


^Letters  of  IRegret 


from  3ut>0e  1benr\>  Biscboff,  Jr. 

Of  tbe  Court  of  Common  iplcas  of  tbc  Cits  of  flew  JBorfc. 

DEAR  SIR : — Answering  yours  of  2d  inst.,  which  reached  me  day 
before  yesterday,  I  beg  to  say  that  nothing  would  afford  me  more 
pleasure  than  to  add  my  tribute  of  esteem  and  affection  for  Professor 
Dwight  in  the  shape  of  an  article  for  the  "  Dwight  Tribute."  But  the 
time  allotted  for  the  article  is  so  short  that  it  is  doubtful  whether  I  will 
be  able  to  comply  with  your  request.  I  shall  endeavor  to  do  so,  but 
write  this  so  that  you  may  select  another  to  write  for  the  Class  of  1871 
and  thus  avoid  a  possible  disappointment. 

Respectfully  yours, 

HENRY  BISCHOFF,  JR. 


jfrom  3ut>$e  %e  Baron  B.  Colt 

Circuit  3uMc  Of  tbe  Unites  States  for  tbe  fftrst  Ju&icial  district. 

MY  DEAR  SIR: — I  very  much  regret  that  the  condition  of  my  health 
will  not  permit  me  to  comply  with  the  request  contained  in  your  letter. 
Did  circumstances  permit,  it  would  give  me  great  pleasure  to  bear 
testimony  to  the  high  character,  ability,  and  worth  of  my  dear  friend 
and  teacher,  Professor  Dwight,  for  whom  I  have  always  had  the  most 
affectionate  regard. 

Sincerely  yours, 

LE  BARON  B.  COLT. 


LETTERS  OF  REGRET.  53 

from  3ut>ge  flfcorgan  3.  ©'Brten. 

Of  tbe  Supreme  Court  of  tbe  State  of  flew  fiord. 

DEAR  SIR : — I  regret  very  much  that  I  shall  not  be  able  to  comply 
with  your  request  to  add  my  mite  of  praise  to  my  old  and  esteemed  law 
professor. 

I  have  a  feeling  for  Professor  Dwight  which  is  warm,  deep,  and 
personal.  Since  leaving  the  College  I  have  met  him  but  once  or  twice, 
but  the  kindly  face,  the  genial  manner,  the  earnest  and  sincere  work 
performed  by  him  have  left  an  impression  which  can  never  be  effaced. 

I  regret,  therefore,  that  your  letter  reaches  me  at  a  time  when  it 
seems  nearly,  if  not  quite,  impossible  for  me  to  comply  with  the  request. 

If  you  do  not  hear  from  me,  therefore,  you  will  understand  that  it  is 
due  to  no  want  of  sympathy  in  a  movement  intended  to  honor  a  man 
whom  all  who  know  him  respect  and  revere. 
With  respect  I  am, 

Yours  truly, 

MORGAN  J.  O'BRIEN. 

from  TKH  flD.  Wn0. 

DEAR  SIR  : — I  was  ill  and  absent  from  my  office  when  yours  of  April 
2d  came,  and  now  for  the  first  time  find  opportunity  to  answer.  I  very 
much  regret  that  I  shall  be  unable  to  comply  with  your  request.  Nothing 
would  give  me  greater  pleasure  than  to  write  an  article  on  Professor 
Dwight's  influence  upon  legal  training  in  this  country.  Expressing  my 
regret  and  thanking  you  heartily  for  the  opportunity  which  you  have 
offered,  I  am 

Yours  truly, 

W.  M.  IviNS. 


Letters  were  also  addressed,  among  others,  to 

Hon.  W.  H.  H.  Miller,  Attorney-General  United  States,  Judge  Elliot 
Sanford,  H.  Walter  Webb,  Third  Vice-President  New  York  Central  Rail- 
road ;  and  Aldace  F.  Walker,  Chairman  Western  Traffic  Association, 
all  of  whom  had  been  students  under  Professor  Dwight's  instruction, 
who  from  want  of  time  were  unable  to  respond  in  time  for  the  publication 
of  their  responses  in  the  Dwight  Tribute. 


